I’m taking the day off today, so please enjoy these images of Isis’ temple at Philae from our Egyptian journey. It truly is the most beautiful of the surviving temples because of the stunning location.
Isis’ Philae Temple, pics!
Category Archives: Pagan Spirituality
A Sacred Tree (and Fruit!) of Isis
Trees are sacred. And the more we know about them, the more we understand how very sacred they are.
The ancient Egyptians, of course, knew this, too. There were a number of trees they held sacred. Yet, perhaps the most intriguing was the ished. The ished is particularly intriguing because it remains a bit mysterious for it has not yet been identified with complete certainty.
And yes, of course, Isis is connected with this mysterious and sacred tree. She is, after all, one of the Egyptian Tree Goddesses.
The Ished in Myth
Mythically, the ished is one of the holy, solar trees associated with Re. It was the sacred tree at Heliopolis on top of which the bennu bird—the phoenix—was eternally reborn in fire. And it was the Tree of Life upon whose leaves and fruits Thoth and Seshat recorded the years of each king’s rule. The tree was also associated with the dead, with renewal, and with Isis’ beloved Osiris, “He Who is in the Heart of the Ished.”
But What Tree is It?
Modern Egyptologists have variously identified the ished, with some of the confusion coming from the fact that the Egyptians themselves seem to have used the word for more than one tree.
In addition, there is some mythological overlap between the ished and another Egyptian sacred tree, the shwab. The most common identification of the ished/shwab today seems to be mimusops laurifolia, an evergreen hardwood tree with fragrant, white flowers and fleshy, eatable fruits. The wood can be used for carpentry and extracts from the bark can be used for tanning leather. It is native to the Ethiopian highlands and now rare in Egypt.
Others have identified the ished as balanites aegyptiaca, a spiny, semi-deciduous desert tree bearing smaller, oval fruits with purgative qualities. Fruits, leaves, and seeds of both trees have been found in Egyptian tombs; minusops leaves were also used in funerary wreaths.
The Persea & Isis
You will also see the sacred ished called by the Greek word persea. In fact, this is the most common name under which you’ll see the tree discussed.
The Greek priest Plutarch is a key source for connecting Isis with the persea. He tells us that the persea is especially sacred to Isis “because its fruit is like a heart and its leaf like a tongue.” He goes on to explain that this is because no human quality is more Divine than reason (especially when it concerns the Deities) and that there is no more driving human force than happiness.
So Plutarch is connecting Isis and the persea with two essentials of human life: relationship with the Divine via reason, and joy of the heart. Of course, this is Plutarch’s Hellenocentric interpretation. A more Egyptian interpretation might be that the heart-shaped fruit refers to the powers of the Goddess to bring forth “what Her heart conceived” while the tongue-like leaves represent “the magical power of Her mouth, being skilled of tongue.”
But we’re not quite out of the woods (so to speak) yet.
Ancient Greek and Latin writers applied the name persea to at least two Egyptian trees. According to the 4th-century-BCE Greek scholar Theophrastus, who made an extensive botanical study entitled Inquiry into Plants, in Egypt there is “another tree called the persea.” He tells us that this persea is large, attractive, and most resembles the pear tree “but it is evergreen, while the other is deciduous.” Theophrastus says that this persea is found only in Egypt.
Generally, Egyptologists today think the ancient authors were referring to the mimusops as the persea. Though, if Theophrastus is right and his record reflects Egyptian usage, the name persea was used for several trees. Which would explain the confusion about its identity.
Theophrastus’ description of the fruit of this evergreen persea is interesting, too. He says that the fruit is gathered unripe and stored. It is about pear-sized, but is “oblong, almond-shaped, and its color is grass green.” He describes the stone inside as like a plum, but smaller and softer. The flesh is sweet and luscious and easily digested and he mentions that it doesn’t cause problems even if eaten in quantity. (It is important to note that when the Greeks used the word “sweet,” they often meant “mild,” not sugary sweet.) Theophrastus’ description seems to better suit the mimusops, the fruit of which is described as delicious, rather than the smaller, purgative fruit of the balanites. Yet mimusops fruit is rounder rather than almond shaped, so perhaps the persea retains its mystery.
Osiris & the Persea
In addition to Isis’ connections with the heart-like fruit and tongue-like leaves of the persea, Osiris has His own persea associations. One of His key symbols, the djed pillar, is a stylized tree. The djed is sometimes shown with eyes and arms that hold the Osirian crook and flail, as if the God were alive within the pillar—causing some Egyptologists to suggest that He was originally a tree spirit.
You may recall that in Plutarch’s telling of the Isis myth, a tree magically grows up around the coffin of the murdered God and is later made into a pillar. In this way, Osiris is indeed within the tree and within the pillar. That tree, too, has been variously identified, from erica to tamerisk to cedar. But if Osiris is the Heart of the Ished, it seems reasonable to assume that the tree that grew up around the body of the Tree God was the holy ished or persea.
A Ptolemaic text records the dedication of an altar and a grove of persea trees to Osiris, Serapis, Isis, and Anubis. In the Roman period, a member of Isis’ Philae temple staff, recorded his good deed of planting four sacred shwab trees, one at Her temple, and three in or outside the nearby town.
We Can Still Honor Isis with Persea Today
While it is unlikely that we will be able to find either the fruit or the leaves of the ancient Egyptian persea today, there is a persea readily available to many of us.
It is the persea americana, our supermarket avocado. Originally from Central America and Mexico, the avocado is a member of the genus persea, evergreens of the laurel family. The persea americana was first so named by the English botanist Philip Miller in 1768. Theophrastus’ description of the Egyptian persea’s fruit no doubt influenced Miller’s choice because his description of the persea’s fruit fits the modern avocado rather precisely.
So, if you wish to honor Our Lady of the Tree—Who conceives in Her heart and speaks All Things into being with Her tongue—you might consider offering Her a lovely bowl of beautiful, green avocados.
Isis the Rebel
Dear rebels and resisters, I want you to know that Our Lady is right there with us.
It seems to be part of Her nature.
Interestingly, quite a number of ancient Athenian Isiacs—living under Roman imperialism—chose to have themselves represented on their tomb steles in Isiac dress as a way to reclaim some of their own individuality.
An article I was reading about this suggested that these people wanted to represent themselves in other than the standard Greco-Roman manner because it let them preserve some of their self definition and personal power (as well as cultic status) in an era when they felt they had little of it politically. And, of course, these people were mostly, but not all, women—people who have had little political power at the best of times, in ancient society and now in far too many places.
In other words, these people were rebelling against Roman societal rule in a way that helped them fashion new and more complex selves—and Isis helped them do it.
Oh, but it started much earlier than that.
Although you still see Isis described as “the ideal wife and mother”—which often has connotations of 1950s housewife—I’ve always thought of Her as quite rebellious in that She always does exactly what She wants to do, and does not let anything stop Her.
That’s why I was taken aback when a friend once remarked to me that she couldn’t get into Isis because of the subservient way She went around “picking up after Osiris.” My friend was, of course, referring to the main Isis-Osiris myth in which Isis travels the length and breadth of Egypt to find and conduct proper funeral rites over the scattered pieces of Her murdered husband’s body.
I, on the other hand, have always considered the ancient myth of Isis to be pretty darned feminist, modeling both feminine power and independence. Indeed, my own feminism is one of the reasons I began exploring Goddess in the first place.
My friend had seen the Isis-Osiris myth as just another “woman-taking-care-of-her-man” story, while I’d seen it as precisely the opposite: a tale of the reversal of stereotypes. Instead of the prince saving the princess, the princess had to save the prince, put him back together, and give him renewed life.
We were both right, of course. A myth speaks to us however it speaks to us. Nevertheless, I think that Isis and Her cycle of myths, especially when you include the important Isis & Re story, provide a proto-feminist model.
Part of the credit for this goes to ancient Egyptian society. While we should have no illusions that men and women were true equals in Egypt, still they were more equal in Egypt than in any of Egypt’s Mediterranean neighbors. In Egypt, women could hold and sell property; they were considered (at least theoretically) equal to men before the law; they could instigate lawsuits; they could lend money; and although it was unusual, a woman could live independently, without a male guardian. In contrast, Greek and Roman laws firmly relegated women to control by their husbands or male relatives and provided little economic or legal protection to women.
So when Isis’ myths depict Her acting autonomously for Her own ends or wielding power, this type of female behavior was not as strange in Egypt as it was in the rest of the Mediterranean world. Another example of Isis wielding power are the tales of Isis as warrior that we have from the tales in the Jumilac papyrus.
Even when Egypt was ruled by non-natives under the Ptolemies (from 305 to 30 BCE), the native Egyptian respect for the feminine and The Feminine seems to have crept in. By the end of the dynasty, the historian Diodorus Siculus (Diodorus of Sicily) could write that due to the success of Isis’ benevolent rule of Egypt (while Osiris was on His mission to civilize the world):
…it was ordained that the queen should have greater power and honor than the king and that among private persons the wife should enjoy authority over her husband, the husbands agreeing in the marriage contract that they will be obedient in all things to their wives.
Diodorus Siculus, Book II, section 22
This wasn’t true, but it is interesting that it would be the impression that Diodorus received when visiting Egypt and speaking to Egyptians.
I’m also reading an article in the Journal of Hellenic Studies by Rachel Evelyn White about women in Ptolemaic Egypt that discusses the possibility that the family tomb may have been the property of a female heir, and which was likely a holdover from ancient Egyptian tradition. This is based on some Egyptian contracts of the time combined with the fact that this was specifically the case among the nearby Nabataeans. If so, this could be one of the bases for retained female power in Egypt, as well as giving women another connection with Isis as the provider of proper burial and funerary rites. It may also point to very ancient matrilineal (not matriarchal) traditions in Egypt.
We should also recall that in several of the remaining Isis aretalogies, the Goddess declares women’s equality with men. What’s more, the relationship between women and men is meant to be friendly and loving—like the relationship modeled by Isis and Osiris. The aretalogy from Maroneia states that Isis established language so that men and women, as well as all humankind, should live in mutual friendship.
In a later Hermetic text entitled Kore Kosmu, Isis explains to Horus the origin and equality of male and female souls, declaring that:
The souls, my son Horus, are all of one nature, inasmuch as they all come from one place, that place where the Maker fashioned them; and they are neither male nor female; for the difference of sex arises in bodies, and not in incorporeal beings.
Scott, Walter, Hermetica, Vol. 1 (Boulder, Colorado, Hermes House, 1982), p. 499-501.
The Oxyrhynchus Invocation of Isis states it quite plainly: “Thou [Isis] didst make the power of women equal to that of men.” I know of no other ancient texts that lay out the message of equality so strongly as is done in the Isis aretalogies and hymns.
And so, I honor Our Lady, Isis the feminist, Isis the rebel and resister. May She help and support us in this difficult time.
More from the Temple of Isis at Dendera
After a few weeks, I’m finally getting back to Dendera and some of the texts inscribed on the walls of the small Isis temple there.
As you may recall, the temple is sometimes called the Birth House of Isis, which celebrates the birth of Isis from Her mother Nuet.
One of the temple walls says explicitly, “On this beautiful day, the day of the Child in His Nest, a great festival throughout the country, Isis is given birth at Dendera by Thoueris [“The Great One;” in this case, meaning Isis’ mother Nuet] in the House of the Noble One [the Noble One is Isis], a woman with black [kemet] hair and red [desheret] skin, full of life, Whose love is sweet.” Her mother Nuet says that She “makes every person rejoice to see You [Isis].”
With Her kemet hair and desheret skin, the Goddess encompasses the Black Land and the Red Land of Egypt. You may also recall from last time that this temple is very much concerned with the sovereignty of Isis over the entire land of Egypt.
Another temple inscription says, “Destiny distinguishes Her on the birthstones. Her heart is rich in all virtue. The south is given to Her until [that is, “as far as”] the [place of the] rising of the Disk, the north until the limits of Darkness. She is mistress of the sanctuaries of Egypt with Her son and Her brother Osiris.” She is “Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt.” She is “Mistress of the cities and Sovereign of the Nomes, the Sovereign of Sanctuaries.”
As this is the temple of Isis’ birth, we have many Birth Goddesses present, including a form of Isis Herself. We find Meskhenet, the Birth Goddess Who sometimes takes the form of a personified birth brick, in four different forms. Meskhenet the Great in the Mound of Tefnut is Tefnut Herself. Meskhenet the Great in the Mound of Birth is Nuet. Meskhenet the Beautiful in the Place of Nativity is Isis. And Meskhenet the Excellent in the Temple of the Menat Necklace is Nephthys.
However, in a different part of the temple, the four Meskhenets are Djedet (Djedet is the principle Goddess of the town of Djedet, also known as Hatmehyt. Learn about Her connection with Isis here.), Nuet, Meskhenet the Beautiful in the Enclosure of Life, Who is Isis, and Meskhenet the Excellent in the Heart of the Land, Who is Nephthys; She is also called Efficient (Akh) for the Daughter of Geb (although Nephthys is Herself a Daughter of Geb, this likely means that Nephthys is akh for Isis).
And speaking of Nephthys, here are some more of Her epithets found in this Isis temple: She is The Excellent and The Efficient. She is the One Whose Breast is Shimmering. She is the One Whose Face is Beautiful, the Mistress of Adornments, and Mistress of Light in the Cavernous [Zones]. (See? Nephthys is not always the Dark One!) And both Sisters’ mother Nuet is called The Unknowable. Which I love so much. All my Goddesses are, ultimately, Unknowable.
This small temple is the source of one of the inspirations for what will be one of our ritual acts at SunFest, our local summer solstice festival in June. There is a section of a wall labeled “Spreading a dusting of gold and green earthenware on the ground at the Mound of Birth.” The Mound of Birth is the place where Isis is born. It is also the place where the entire world is born, when it first emerges from the primordial Waters. It is well to honor this sacred place within the temple. Indeed, all temples were considered to be the Primordial Mound where the world first emerged from the Waters.
What caught my eye in this case was the idea of scattering gold dust and powdered green faience in this holy place as a consecration. It reminds me of the colored powders scattered during the Indian Holi festival. During our Festival of the Return of the Wandering Goddess, we’ll be doing something similar and scattering dried flower petals in the path of the Returning Goddess to consecrate the Way of Her Return. If we happen to get some on each other in the process, oh well.
While Isis, in Her birth temple, is said to be the First One Born Among the Goddesses, nevertheless, Hathor as a Cow Goddess is there at the same time and licks the baby Goddess Isis on the day of Her birth—just as mother cows lick their calves at birth. (Of course, Nuet can also be a Cow Goddess; She is, in fact, the Cow Goddess referred to in the famous text known as The Heavenly Cow.)
At Isis’ birth Hathor sings, Khnum makes the “Divine body” of the Goddess, that is, Her sacred temple image. The ka and the hemsut (feminine fate spirits associated with the ka) rejoice as They receive Isis’ Mysterious Image, that is, Her temple statue. Nekhbet as the Uraeus vows to sit upon Her brow to protect Her. Other Goddesses also vow protection for Isis as Thoth promises that He will write Her stories.
One of the parts of the temple is called the Sanctuary of the Vase, which the king made for Isis “to protect Her body in his sanctuary in joy, to preserve Her Divine Images there.” Isis is said to enter “Her chapel in the Land of Atum, Her heart is glad to enter there.” The Sanctuary of the Vase then is the storage area for Isis’ sacred images and the Goddess is pleased with the images and so She happily enters into the image and Her sanctuary. The king has made the sanctuary for She Who is Full of Life and the images “are excellently chiseled by the work of the sculptors, enhanced with gold to perfection.”
Here’s another thing I found interesting. One temple text says that the bas (manifestations/powers/a mode of Divine Being) of all the Deities follow the ba of Isis and They “melt” over Their effigies on the walls in joy.
I am very much intrigued by the idea of Isis’ ba—an aspect of Her Divine energy that indwells Her sacred image—melting over the image. Sometimes the Divine ba is said to swoop down from the heavens like a bird to alight on the sacred image. But melting over and into it—infusing the image with Her ba—really catches me.
I shall definitely use that visualization the next time I invoke Her to the sacred image that dwells in my home shrine for Her. And that is something else to note. We don’t just invoke Our Divine Ones to Their sacred images and call it done. Each time we invoke Her, She comes anew. Each time we ask Isis to come to us, come to us, She once again “melts” over Her sacred image.
That’s as far as I’ve gotten in my books for now. I’ll share more of what I learn as I go along.
SunFest 2025: The Return of the Wandering Goddess
June 27-29, 2025 Portland Oregon area
The ritualists for this festival are meeting today at my house for rehearsal. It’s getting REAL and I’m getting excited! If you’re in or near the Pacific Northwest, I hope you’ll join us for our upcoming summer solstice festival for 2025. SunFest 2025 is being put on by Other Worlds of Wonder (OWOW), please visit their website at the link below. I am serving as ritual facilitator—along with a truly wonderful Crewe of ritualists and craftspeople. It is going to be pure magic!
Read all about the festival rites and rituals here:
The Myth of the Wandering Goddess is one of the two most important myths of ancient Egypt. Just about every town or region had its own version of the festival that celebrated this myth. Although different Goddesses were the “Wandering Goddess” in each local area, our festival celebrates the power of Sakhmet and the ecstasy of Hathor.
During SunFest 2025, we’ll explore this important myth in an immersive, participatory way. Each ritual, presentation, or workshop is designed to draw us into the overall myth so that—together—we will live our own version of that myth and celebrate the festival that surrounded it.
SunFest 2025 takes place Friday through Sunday at Camp Cedar Ridge—as we await Ffynnon’s private park status.
Friday
Creating Altars & Invoking Hathor & Sakhmet
Our first ritual act is to create altars for the Goddesses and to invoke Their presence to our festival. You’re invited to bring items to add to the altar. We will create it together as part of the rite. Then, with the altars prepared, we invoke our two festival Goddesses, the Fierce Goddesses of the Solar Eye: Hathor, the Golden One, and Sakhmet, the Powerful One.
Through our desire, through our invocations, through our music, and our moving bodies, we call upon our Goddesses to be present with us during this festival.
Sedj Desherut, the Ritual of Breaking Red Pots
The ancient Egyptian Ritual of Breaking Red Pots was performed to protect against enemies, physical and/or spiritual. Archeologists have found fragments of the pots that had been inscribed with curses against said enemies. In our version, we will join with Sakhmet in Her righteous anger against the injustice in the world and smash our own “red pots.” By expressing our rage, both personal and societal, we begin the Sacred Work of becoming purified and renewed.
At the end of this ritual, the Goddess Sakhmet departs from us and we are now without the powerful protection of our Goddess.
Seducing Sakhmet, Dancing for Her
The Hathoru, sacred enticers of the Goddess Hathor, will help us get the Friday night drumming and dancing going with a calling for the absent Goddess and a chant to seduce Her to return.
Saturday
Workshop: The Myth of the Wandering Goddess
I’ll present a talk and slide show to explain the importance of this myth to ancient Egypt and provide background to help us understand the rituals and activities of the festival.
At the end of the presentation, we’ll have the opportunity to experience the energies of both Sakhmet and Hathor for ourselves.
Sehotep Sakhmet; Pouring Out Red Beer for Her
Five gallons of red beer are being ritually brewed as an offering to Sakhmet, so that we may appease Her wrath and coax Her to return to us. Without our Fierce Goddess, we, like the Sun God Re, are vulnerable. The First Servant of Sakhmet will lead us in a prayer and chant to the Goddess. Then we will pour out the blood-red beer into the fields in hopes that the Goddess will be pleased and made peaceful through it.
Workshop: Creating Offerings
We’ll break into 5 groups, our “villages.” Each village will work together to create an offering for the Returning Goddess—as She has been promised by Thoth, the God of Wisdom, if She agrees to return home.
The Return of the Wandering Goddess; Hathor is in Joy
Wise Thoth has followed the Lioness Goddess to Nubia and has entertained Her with many excellent stories. He has coaxed Her to return home, promising offerings, dancing, and feasting in Her honor.
Join us at the riverbank, our isheru, where the Returning Goddess is renewed in the Deep Primordial Waters. We, like our Goddess, will be purified and renewed as well. By our rites and in these Waters, Red Sakhmet transforms Herself into Turquoise Hathor, the Intoxicating One.
Then we walk together in procession as we make music and throw flower petals in the path of the Returning Goddess—and at each other, if we’re feeling playful. The Goddess’ reed boat stops at each village and we present our offerings to Her.
Community Picnic
We join together in the main meadow to feast with our Community and in honor of our Goddesses, Hathor and Sakhmet, and Thoth.
Blessings of the Seven Hathors
As the sun sets, we are called once more to gather at the Fire Circle. The Goddess will be present in 7 different forms and She will bless us in return for the offerings we created and presented to Her earlier.
There is no formal end to the ritual. We drum and dance our way into the night as we so desire.
Sunday
Pouring Out Pure Milk for Her
This is the closing ritual for the festival. We pour out pure milk in thanks to Sakhmet, Hathor, and Thoth, then ritually release Their Presences by extinguishing our fiery torches in the sacred milk of the Goddess.
The rite also incorporates OWOW’s traditional gift exchange. If you wish to participate, bring a small gift with you as a thanksgiving to be given to someone in our community, and you will receive one in return.
PLUS—Join us for a workshop on magic and protest later on Sunday!
How to Register
Isis Outside of Egypt
How many of us were Egyptophiles from very early on in our lives, even as children? That’s true of me. You, too?
The power of ancient Egypt is magnetic, irresistible. And our Goddess Isis is perhaps THE most well known—and for some of us, most magnetic and irresistible—of the representatives of Her ancient homeland.
We are not alone in our attraction to Egypt and to Isis. We’re not alone today, and we’re not alone historically. Fascination with Egypt and devotion to Isis spread far beyond the borders of ancient Egypt. In the beginning, Isis was a local Deity. Eventually, Her worship and that of Osiris spread throughout much of Egypt. By the 5th century BCE, the Greek historian Herodotus said Theirs was the only pan-Egyptian worship. (This isn’t so, but it shows how widely their worship had spread within Egypt.)
Even during archaic times (as early as 800 BCE), we see traces of devotion, such as inscriptions or votive images, outside of Egypt. By the 4th century BCE, Isis and Her family were adopted into Nubia to the south of Egypt and Greece to the north. Then, from the beginning of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt (305-30 BCE) through the Roman Empire, devotion to Isis spread very quickly.
Due to some ancient documents we still have, we can know that the first temple of Isis was built in Greece, in the Piraeus, Athens’ port city, by the late 4th century BCE. I found an article detailing how that may have come about.
The first thing we hear of it is in a legal document that the folks who had received said document had carved in stone and set up in the Piraeus. They wanted to make sure there would be no mistake that they had proper permission. The people who had it carved were from Cyprus and they had gained permission to set up an Aphrodite sanctuary. The interesting thing for Isiacs is that they had done it on the precedent of Egyptians having built a sanctuary of Isis in the same area. The document is dated to 333/2 BCE. So this means that the formal worship of Isis was established in the Athens area sometime before 333/2 BCE. On the Greek holy island of Delos, sometime about this same period, an altar dedicated to Isis is the oldest of the inscriptions related to the Egyptian Deities.
The person who had proposed that Athens grant this permission to the Cyrians was a guy named Lycurgus who was in charge of Athenian finances, and so was quite powerful. At least one scholar has suggested that he had something of a personal interest in the previous Isian sanctuary. His grandfather, also named Lycurgus, may have been the one who proposed that the Egyptians be allowed to build their sanctuary. If it was Lycurgus senior who was connected with the Egyptians and their sanctuary, then that would put the establishment of an Isis temple at Athens about the late 5th century BCE.
However, getting foreign sanctuaries built was not an easy thing. And in fact, Lycurgus senior was thoroughly mocked for his promotion of the Egyptian Deities. He was nicknamed “Ibis” in Aristophanes’ comedy, The Birds. An ancient scribe commenting on this nickname opined that he was called that either because he was Egyptian by birth or due to “his Egyptian ways.” A fragment from another comedian pictured Lycurgus wearing a kalasiris, the long, form-fitting sheath dress of an Egyptian woman. Yet another suggests that Lycurgus might be carrying messages home to “his fellow countrymen” in Egypt.
Most scholars are pretty sure Lycurgus senior wasn’t Egyptian—and are certain that he was an Athenian citizen—but it seems that he may have indeed been an Egyptophile. What we don’t know for certain is whether Lycurgus the younger was actually the grandson of Lycurgus the Ibis. So there may be no connection at all and the names merely coincidental. The author of the article I’m reading suggests that grants to both to the Isis and Aphrodite devotees may have been more political than religious. Athens had suffered some defeats during this time period. The author suggests that Lycurgus the younger was welcoming sanctuaries from other areas so that he could help build up Athens’ trade and thus its economic power. So it’s always money.
While it may have been money for Lycurgus the financial administrator, it wasn’t just money for other Isis-interested people in the Mediterranean. For instance, we see more Greek parents giving their children names that included Hers at about these same times. Scholars generally agree that when we see an upswing in what are known as theophoric names (“Deity-Bearing” names; for instance, “Isidora” is a theophoric name), we are witnessing an increase in the Deity’s popularity as well. In Greece, we see a few Isis-bearing names in the 3rd century BCE, many in the 2nd century BCE, then an absolute explosion of Isis names from the 1st century BCE through the Roman Imperial period.
Perhaps even more interesting is that people may have taken names that included Hers as a sign of their devotion. This is not so different today. My own theophoric name is a taken name that I legally changed to permanently connect me with Her. And I know I’m not the only one.
Isis may have been especially important in Miletus, an ancient Greek city in what is now Turkey. There are five women, known from their funerary reliefs, who all bore the name Isias (or Eisias) and had come to Athens from Miletus. Some scholars have suggested that these women may have been former slaves who were freed in the name of Isis and therefore took the name of their deliverer. Others have suggested that they were initiates of Isis who took Her name—or that they may have been both.
The five Isis-named women were shown on their grave reliefs in the famous “dress of Isis,” that is, the fringed mantle with Isis knot, and holding the sistrum and situla. But theirs were not the only examples. In fact, we know of 108 such Attic reliefs of women and some men with Isis attributes; the women wear the Isis-knotted dress, while the men hold the sistrum and situla. During the Roman period in Athens, this number makes up one-third of all the known (and published) grave reliefs. If that number reflects true percentages rather than just chance, that’s an awful lot of Isiacs.
In addition to the possibility that these Isis-accoutered people were initiates of Isis, it has also been suggested that they may have either been priest/esses, had a priest/essly function, or may simply have been especially enthusiastic devotees; for example, volunteers who helped maintain the sanctuaries and participated in the rites.
Or they may have been members of religious associations that were connected with the sanctuaries and served both a religious and social function. We know of one such group in particular that was connected to one of the Isis-Sarapis sanctuaries on Delos. It seems likely that enthusiasts would be members, or even founders, of such associations.
People could also stay for a time at the temples. In Apuleius’ tale of initiation into Isis’ Mysteries, prior to deciding to be initiated, his character Lucius simply spends time in Isis’ sanctuary:
I took a room in the temple precincts, and set up house there, and though serving the Goddess as layman only, as yet, I was a constant companion of the priests and a loyal devotee of the Great Deity.
Apuleius, the Golden Ass, Book XI, 19
I wish he had described what specific things he, as a layperson, was allowed to do to serve the Goddess. He does describe, in part, the morning rites to which the public seems to have been welcomed:
I waited for the doors of the shrine to open. The bright white sanctuary curtains were drawn, and we prayed to the august face of the Goddess, as a priest made his ritual rounds of the temple altars, praying and sprinkling water in libation from a chalice filled from a spring within the walls. When the service was finally complete, at the first hour of the day, just as the worshipers with loud cries were greeting the dawn light…
Apuleius, the Golden Ass, Book XI, 20
From the evidence we have from Greek Isis sanctuaries, it seems that the Greeks used priest/essly titles they were familiar with, but with adaptations to fit Isis’ mythos. We have records of a hiereus, a priest, a stolistes, one who adorns the sacred image of Isis, a zakoros, an attendant, a kleidouchos, a key bearer, and a melanophoros, a bearer (or wearer) of the black garments—Isis’ black garments of mourning. We can expect that Isis received offerings of food and drink, as did native Greek Deities.
We have mentions from several Roman writers about devotions to Isis. The poets Propertius and Tibullus complain of the period of sexual abstinence their mistresses undertook for Isis. Ovid writes of the crowds of penitents at the temple of Isis. Tibullus also mentions a ritual called votivas reddere voces in which devotees could join in the singing of the virtues (aretai) of Isis in front of Her temple twice a day. (I wonder if they used any of the aretalogies of Isis we know of.)
Interestingly, when Isis comes to Rome, Her Roman worshipers seemed to have tried to make Her worship more “Egyptian” than did Her Greek worshipers. For instance, Roman Isis temples celebrated the rising of Sothis. They added back Egyptian symbols, such as the divine animals: crocodile, baboon, and canine. We see the development of lifelong priesthoods, something done in Egypt, but not done in Greece. Some Roman emperors may have especially appreciated the Egyptian relationship between Isis the Throne and the pharaoh. And it is in Italy that we first see priestesses of Isis rather than just priests.
For modern devotees, knowing the ways in which our spiritual ancestors—whether in Her homeland of Egypt or outside of its borders— honored Isis can inspire us in developing our own ways to honor Her. Whether we make offerings of food upon Her altar, pour libations of milk and wine, or sing of Her virtues before our shrines, we honor the Goddess Who fills our hearts and we connect with those who have gone before us.
Isis, the Birth Goddess & Lots of Bricks
Egypt is a land of bricks. From the ancient sun-dried mudbrick temple enclosures to modern Egyptian apartments, everything was and is made of bricks. (And, modernly, supplemented by concrete.)
It’s because there never were many trees and the native ones aren’t very suitable for large building projects. Even anciently, building wood was imported.
So bricks were and are still the answer. the ancient Egyptians encountered bricks on the way into life, during life, and on the way out of life.
The ones they encountered on the way into and out of life were special. There were magical.
On the way into life, there were four bricks, stacked in pairs, that served to elevate a birthing mother so that when her child emerged beneath her, the baby could easily be caught in the hands of the midwife. (According to midwives even today, a squatting or sitting posture is preferable to the supine position in which most modern Western women give birth, generally resulting in a faster, easier delivery.)
On the way out of life, there were the four talismanic bricks that were placed in niches in the four sides of a burial chamber. These bricks were decorated with amuletic figures: in the east, the Anubis jackel; in the south, a flame; in the west, the djed pillar of Osiris; and in the north, a mummiform male figure. All of them protected the deceased.
Doubtless, the talismanic bricks that surrounded the body of the deceased in the tomb were meant to assist in rebirth into the next life, just as the birthing bricks assisted in a child’s birth into physical life.
The Goddess most closely associated with the birthing bricks is Meskhenet, Protectress of the Birthing Place. The bricks were called meskhenut (pl.) after Her. Meskhenet is depicted either as a woman-headed birthing brick or as a woman with a distinctive curling headdress that has been identified as a stylized cow’s uterus. She protects mother and child during the dangerous process of birth, She foretells the child’s destiny as the baby is born, and She is among the Deities of rebirth Who witness the judgment of the deceased in the Otherworld.
With Isis’ own connection to both birth and rebirth, you will probably not be surprised to learn that Isis is closely associated with Meskhenet. At Osiris’ temple complex at Abydos, four Meskhenets serve as assistants to Isis in the great work of rebirth done there. At Hathor’s temple complex at Denderah, a combined form of Isis and Meskhenet (Meskhenet Noferet Iset or Meskhenet the Beautiful Isis) is one of the four Birth Goddesses of Denderah. And in the famous story of the birth of three kings found in the Westcar papyrus, both Isis and Meskhenet are among the four Goddesses Who assist in the kings’ births.
Both tomb bricks and birthing bricks were protective. In an inscription from the temple at Esna, Khnum, the God Who forms the child’s body and ka on His Divine potter’s wheel, places four Meskhenet Goddesses around each of His various forms “to repel the designs of evil by incantations.” As Birth Goddess, Meskhenet is associated with the ka as well. A papyrus in Berlin invokes Her to “make ka for this child, which is in the womb of this woman!”
We have a few surviving spells that were used to charge the birthing bricks. They were used to repel the attacks of enemies to the north and south of Egypt and may indicate that the birthing bricks, like the tomb bricks, were connected with the directions.
And here’s another tidbit showing parallels between the magical tomb bricks and birthing bricks. In an Egypt Exploration Society article by Ann Macy Roth and Catherine H. Roehrig, the authors point out an interesting gender-reversed aspect of these magical bricks.
You may recall that four Sons of Horus are the Gods Who protect the four canopic jars that contain the internal organs of the mummy. These four Gods are, in turn, guarded by four Goddesses. In Tutankhamun’s tomb, the Goddesses are Isis, Nephthys, Selket, and Neith. Roth and Roehrig suggest that we may be able to explain the amuletic figures associated with the tomb bricks in a similar, though opposite, manner. If the four meskhenets are personified as four Goddesses Who protect the birthing place, perhaps the four figures on the tomb bricks—the God Anubis, a mummiform male, a Divine pillar associated with Osiris, and a flame, the hieroglyph for which is rather phallic—may be considered Divine Masculine Powers Who protect the four Meskhenet Goddesses, just as four Goddesses protect the four Sons of Horus.
It is worth noting that these magical bricks were made in the same way as were the traditional mudbricks of Egypt. They were fashioned from the fertile Nile clay and sand, mixed with straw, which may be associated with Isis as Lady of the Fertile Earth, then they were dried in the brilliant heat of Isis-Re, the Radiant Sun Goddess. And, of course, as a Divine Mother Herself, Isis is connected with every aspect of human and animal fertility, from conception to birth, as well as the protection of the children as they grow.
As we have a south-to-north flowing river here in Portland, I might see if I can get some Portland “Nile” mud to create four miniature mudbricks. Then I could magically charge them by naming them “Meskhenet Noferet Iset” and placing them in the four quarters of the temple—or even outside, one on each side of the house. They might provide some very fine magical protection.
An Egyptian Rite for Making Offering to Isis
I often find it easier to keep up my spiritual practice when I have something “set,” something specific, to do. Like a small ritual that I’ve pretty much got memorized. Is that true for you? If so, then today I’d like to share with you just such a small ritual. This one is an offering rite. It is adapted from the Daily Ritual in the Egyptian temples. (If you have your new copy of Offering to Isis, a version of it is in there. Here’s a version you can use, and of course, adapt, as you choose.)
I’ve called this one the Adma Iset, “Offering to Isis.” Adma is one of the (many) Egyptian words for an offering rite. I preferred the sound of this one compared to some of the others, so I adopted it. Based on Egyptian temple rites, this ritual is adapted for a single person instead of a temple-full of folks.
The Adma Iset
Ritual Tools: A cup or other vessel of pure water; a censer with charcoal and incense; fire starter for incense; an offering (this can be anything you choose: milk, beer, flowers, a poem, a dance); a small reed mat (such as a table place mat); a shallow tray of sand large enough to place one foot in; a bundle of fresh plants for sweeping the sand. These last two are optional, but are adapted from things they actually did in Egyptian temples. You can do this rite at your altar; I will assume you have a sacred image of Isis on your altar.
Ritual Preparation: Prepare your offering as needed; set the small reed mat on the floor before the altar; place the tray with sand and the fresh plants conveniently to the side.
Purification & Consecration
Sit comfortably before your altar, breathing slowly, clearing your mind. When you are ready, rise, approach the altar of Isis, and bow politely.
Ritualist: (Raising your hands in a gesture of adoration) Isis is all things and all things are Isis.
Take up the cup and elevate it.
Ritualist: (To the Purifying Powers) O, You Souls of Night, Water Dwellers, Purifiers, You of the Pure Water from the Sycamore Tree of Isis, I have come for you. By the Blood, by the Power, by the Magic of Isis, establish yourselves within this vessel!
Lower the cup to heart level. Visualize blue light coming into your body from above, let it move through your body into the earth, then bring it back up into your heart, then into the cup as you vibrate.
Ritualist: (Vibrating) ISET MU [EE-set MOO; Egyptian: “Isis of Water”]!
Circle your ritual space, sprinkling water, then sprinkle yourself.
Ritualist: (Speaking while walking) Isis is pure. The temple is pure. The temple is pure. I am pure. I am pure with the Purity of Isis. I am pure with the Purity of the Goddess. (Repeating until you return to the altar; then repeat as needed until you feel the truth of your statement.)
Ritualist: By the Magic of Isis, it is so!
Return cup to altar, take up censer and elevate it.
Ritualist: (To the Consecrating Powers) O, You Souls of Day, Fire Dwellers, Consecrators, You of the Pure Breath from the Mouth of Isis, I have come for you. By the Blood, by the Power, by the Magic of Isis, establish yourselves within this censer!
Lower the censer to heart level. Visualize red light coming into your body from above, let it move through your body into the earth, then bring it back up into your heart, then into the censer as you vibrate.
Ritualist: (Vibrating) ISET ASH [EE-set AHshh; Egyptian: “Isis of Fire”]!
Circle your ritual space, censing it and then yourself.
Ritualist: (Speaking while walking) Isis is consecrated. The temple is consecrated. The temple is consecrated. I am consecrated. I am consecrated with the Fire of Isis. I am consecrated with the Flame of the Goddess. (Repeating until you return to the altar; then repeat as needed until you feel the truth of your statement.)
Ritualist: By the Magic of Isis, it is so!
Entering
Face the altar and make the Gesture of Adoration.
Ritualist: Isis is upon Her Throne. The spirits awaken! They awaken in peace for they know that I have come to make offering unto this Great Goddess.
Put your palms together and extend your arms straight out in front of you. Slowly open your arms as if opening a heavy curtain. This is the gesture of Opening the Shrine. Place the tray of sand before the sacred image and step in it to leave a footprint in the sand.
Ritualist: The sacred doors are opened to me. The light goes forth. It guides me on a fair path to the place where the Great Goddess is. I approach Your shrine, O Isis.
Offering to the Uraeus Goddess
Take up the censer and elevate it.
Ritualist: (Addressing the Uraeus serpent form of Isis) The Sacred Eye is powerful. Lady of Flame, Great One Who is between the horns of the Sunshine Goddess, accept this perfume and let me enter in peace.
Place the censer in your dominant hand, resting on your upturned palm. Bring that hand to your heart. Breathe in and visualize light glowing around the censer. Slowly swing your arm outward toward the image of the Goddess. Visualize the light flowing from the incense smoke to Her sacred image. This is the Gesture of Giving. Return the censer to its place.
Invoking the Goddess
Stand before the sacred image. Place your palms together in front of you as if preparing to applaud. Bring them apart to a comfortable distance, remaining thumbs up. To make the Gesture of Invocation, move the tips of your fingers towards you in a ‘come to me’ gesture. Do this slowly and gently as you speak the invocation below.
Ritualist: Iu en-i. Iu en-i (Eeoou-en-EE; Egyptian: “Come to me”). Come to me, come to me, Beautiful, Great One—Isis of Many Names, Great of Magic, Great Mother, Great Goddess. Come to me, come to me! (Vibrating) ISIS. ISIS. ISIS.
See within your heart the light of the Goddess. Feel it glowing with sun-bright warmth and beauty.
(Speaking to the Goddess) Fair is Your coming to Your temple, Isis. Beautiful is Your appearance in my heart.
Place your hand upon your heart, breathe in, and on the out-breath, move your hand toward the altar and send that light into the sacred image of Isis.
Making Offering
You may continue to stand or be seated at this time.
Ritualist: My body being on Earth, my heart being awake, my magic being in my mouth, O Isis, I make offering unto You.
Take up your offering. With open heart, speak aloud why you have chosen to give that particular offering for the Goddess.
If your offering is physical, use the Gesture of Giving (above) to offer it to Isis. If it is not, visualize a symbol representing it in your palm as if it were physical. Breathe in, visualize light around the offering, then on the out-breath, move your hand toward the altar and see that light transfer to the sacred image of Isis. Then, if your offering is performative, perform the offering (e.g. read the poem, dance the dance).
The Reversion of Offerings (optional section)
Standing, make the Gesture of Adoration toward the sacred image of Isis. Close your eyes and visualize the Goddess tracing an ankh symbol over the offering you have given. It glows with the power of Life, the power of Her Divine Ka. She breathes a blessing into it. She breathes a blessing into you. Breathe Her breath and be blessed.
Ritualist: The offering is reverted. Its blessing comes to me. Its blessing goes out into the world. Its beauty endures forever.
Note: Offerings such as food and drink, once reverted, may be consumed by you and your household. Non-consumable offerings may be kept on Isis’ altar or kept in some other convenient place nearby.
Closing the Temple
Once again, take some time to see the light of what you have given glowing around the sacred image of Isis. Let yourself know that She has accepted your offering. Feel Her blessing upon you in return.
When you are ready, take up the bundle of plants and sweep away the footprint in the sand. Make the Gesture of the Closing of the Shrine (the opposite of Opening the Shrine above).
Ritualist: I have flourished on water. I have grown on incense. I have climbed up on sunbeams. O Isis, give me Your hand for I have made offering unto You.
Be in peace, Isis, be in peace. Amma, Iset (AH-ma, EE-set; Egyptian: “Grant that it be so, Isis”).
The Adma is finished. Exit the ritual space or remain in meditation as desired.
Isis & Her Manifestations
More from the Temple of Isis at Dendera.
In this one small, mostly destroyed temple, there are many Deities speaking.
They are everywhere, on every wall. Many are well known, like Tefnut and Hathor and Thoth; some more obscure. The king—always said to be beloved of Isis and Ptah—is ubiquitous as well as he makes many different offerings of many different kinds. And, as this is the temple of the birth of Isis, She Who is First Born Among the Goddesses, there is much rejoicing in this small temple.
For example, the Goddess Merit, the Enchantress Who is here called “Lady of the Throat,” uses Her beautiful throat and voice to arouse joy and bring intoxication; She also leads the dances for Isis. Isis Herself is Mistress of Intoxication Who Arouses joy, Whose Heart is Satisfied with Revelry. Nuet declares that She “makes every person rejoice to see You [Isis].” Hor-Ihy, a combination of Isis’ son Horus with Hathor’s son Ihy, plays the sistrum “for the Mistress of the Sistrum-Temple, Isis the Great, Mother of the God.” The Gods dance for Her. The Goddesses are joyful for Her. The women play the tambourine for Isis the Luminous One. Hathor, Mistress of the Sweet Breath, sings for Her.
A lot of what we find in this temple, as we did in Hathor’s, are the various names of the Goddess Isis in other parts of Egypt. Interestingly, an inscription on this temple is also one source for our understanding of the Goddess Bast (or Bastet) as “the soul of Isis.” It comes from one of those inscriptions where Isis is being described as a Goddess of various names in other Egyptian locales. And one of those names is
“Nbt B3st (Lady Bast or the Lady of Bubastis) is the Heliopolitan. B3 n 3st [ba or “soul” of Isis] it is said of Her name. B3t is Her name in the mouths of human beings from ancient times of the Deities until now.”
We can be pretty sure that the Egyptians were engaging in some word play here—word play that is intended to reveal mysteries. If you look at the transliteration (writing the hieroglyphs in “latin” or “roman” letters; with the addition of some special characters) of Bast’s name and Isis’ name, you will see that the letters for Isis are within the name of Bast: B3st and 3st. The “3” here does not really represent a three, but is one of those special characters; it is sometimes called aleph, from Hebrew, because it is a consonant that is also “sort of” a vowel, as aleph is in Hebrew. For simplicity’s sake, we are usually told to pronounce it like an English long “a,” (ah). But it isn’t really an a. It’s a glottal stop. Here’s how that works in Isis’ Egyptian name.
So, what the Egyptians were telling us is that Bast and Isis are linked because from within the name Bast, Isis is revealed. This is expressed by writing that B3 n 3st [Ba/soul of Isis] it is said of Her name.” But “ba” in Egypt isn’t really what we usually mean by “soul” though that is a conventional translation. The concept of the ba is much, much more complicated—and I’ll post on that sometime, but not today.
But in short, ba is one way that a Deity can express Themselves. Ba is an active manifestation of a Deity. So a better way to think about it would be that Bast can be a manifestation of Isis. Or that Isis can express Herself as Bast. This is very much in line with the very fluid way Egyptian Deities can flow into or become each other or express Themselves as each other.
In the final line of this section of the inscription, it says B3t, or Baet, is Her—in this case, Isis’—name “from ancient times of the Deities until now.” This is not a reference to the Cow Goddess Bat or Ba-et. Instead, it is an expression of Isis’ immense power. The ba-power of a Deity made manifest is often written in the plural, bau, though often treated as a singular. The plurality not only intensifies the power, but also recognizes that the Deity is not limited to a single manifestation of power. For example, wind is the bau of Shu. The stars are the bau of Nuet. And both have other bau as well.
Thus to be the Goddess Baet, Whose very Name—from ancient times until now—IS this ba-power, is to be powerful indeed. We learn about Isis’ bau in other inscriptions at Dendera as well. She is said to be the One “Whose bau is great.” In fact, “Her bau is greater than all the Gods.” As a Baet Goddess, She shares this great might with only few other Goddesses, such as Hathor, Neith, and Nephthys. As a Baet Goddess, She shows Her power on earth, where humankind bows to it, and in the heavens, where She is B3t em pt, the Mighty One in the Sky.
On another wall of Her temple, at least a dozen Deities “open the New Year” for the Daughter of Nuet, Isis the Goddess. We even have the founding date for the current temple: July 16, 54 BCE. That was the day of the heliacal rising of the Star of Isis, Sirius, and—the temple records—that for a brief time that morning, both moon and sun were seen in the sky. So both Re and Osiris were there to greet Isis at the foundation of Her Horizon or Akhet Temple. It is so called, no doubt, due to its orientation to the east and the rising of Her Star, as well as the regenerative power of the liminal space of the Akhet.
We also learn that,
“On this beautiful day, the Day of the Child in His Nest, [there is] a great festival throughout the country, Isis is given birth at Dendera by Thoueris [meaning the Great One, in this case, Her mother Nuet] in the temple of the Venerable [Isis].”
And that Isis was born as
“a woman with black (kemet) hair and red (desheret) skin, full of life, Whose love is sweet.”
This must also be word play, for Isis is born with the colors of the Black Land and Red Land shown forth in Her Divine form and so She rules over both; She rules over all things.
Indeed, even from before Her birth, Isis was destined to rule.
“Destiny distinguishes Her on the birthstones. Her heart is rich in all virtue. The south is given to Her until [that is, “as far as”] the [place of the] rising of the Disk, the north until the limits of Darkness. She is mistress of the sanctuaries of Egypt with Her son and Her brother Osiris.”
Isis is Queen of Upper and Lower Egypt and She rules the Two Lands “from the bricks of birth.” She is the ruler of cities and sanctuaries; indeed She is the Venerable One Without Equal, the Regent Who Governs the Universe.
Just as Isis’ own birth is celebrated in this temple, so Her birth-giving to Horus is also celebrated. Isis is called “the Primordial, the First to Give Birth Among the Goddesses, the One with the Beautiful Face, Whose Milk is Sweet.”
I’ve just scratched the surface here. There’s definitely more. Next time, we’ll look into some of the birth-associated texts and images to see what we can learn there.
‘Offering to Isis’ a look inside
I’m excited to let you know that I received my publisher’s copies of Offering to Isis. And I’m so happy; it is gorgeous. Take a look at this unboxing video to see a little of the interior. And for more details about what’s in it, here’s a post on that.
Oh, and one thing I forgot in the video is that it comes with a sewn-in ribbon to mark your place and stitched binding for durability.
If you’d like your own copy of this beautiful, numbered, limited-edition book, visit Miskatonic Books!
‘Offering to Isis’ is here
I (almost) have my author copies of Offering to Isis! It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here.
The shipment is on the way from the printer to the publisher even as you read this. So, if you pre-ordered a copy, it should be on its way to you soon. If you’d like to order a copy, it’s available from Azoth Press at the Miskatonic Books website. Here’s the direct link.
I’ll do an unboxing video when I get my copies to show you more of the book. But in the meantime, here are some pics from the publisher:
I know a lot of you are familiar with Isis Magic, but maybe you haven’t yet come across Offering to Isis. I may be a bit partial, but I really like this book a lot, too.
Offering to Isis is about how we can connect with, honor, and grow our relationship with Isis through the ancient and eternal practice of making offering. Offering is one of the most important ways we human beings have always communicated with our Deities. It was vitally important in ancient Egypt and it’s just as important for those of us interested in or devoted to Isis today.
If you’ve ever wondered exactly what sort of things to offer to Isis, Offering to Isis includes in-depth explanations of 72 sacred symbols associated with Isis—symbols that make ideal offerings to Her.
We’ll also talk about the how and why of Egyptian offering practices, including the important and genuinely ancient Egyptian technique of “Invocation Offering.”
There’s information on exactly how the ka energy inherent in every offering is given to and received by Isis—and what to do with offerings once they’ve been received. You’ll also find a selection of offering rituals, from simple to complex, for a variety of purposes. Most rites are for solitary devotees, so I think you’ll find one that works just right for you.
If you’re curious and want to know exactly what’s in the book, you can download a PDF copy of the full Table of Contents by clicking on the caption under the “Contents” image.
The largest section of the book details the 72 sacred symbols of Isis. You’ll add to your knowledge of Isis and Her ancient worship by learning more about Her through Her important sacred symbols. You’ll see how each one is intimately connected with Her and how they may be used in offering rites for Her. Every entry also includes an Invocation Offering that you can use for your own offerings to Isis.
One of the things I especially like about this book is that you can just open it at random and you’ll likely find something you hadn’t known about Her, something that I hope will inspire you in your own devotions. For instance, how did the Knot of Isis come to be Her knot? What stones are associated with Her? What animals are connected with Her? Why are dreams especially important when it comes to Isis?
As it’s been a few years since this book was first published, the text has been thoroughly updated. All the hieroglyphs associated with the offerings have been re-illustrated and are much more accurate—and much more beautiful—in this new edition, too. There’s also a handy appendix in the back for quick reference in finding any offering you may need.
This new Azoth Press edition can be purchased only through the Miskatonic Books website. (If you go to Amazon, you will be ordering a 20-year-old paperback edition published by Llewellyn in 2005, which people are trying to sell at very inflated prices.)
Oh yes, and if you’d like, you can take advantage of Miskatonic’s installment plan that lets you pay over several months so it doesn’t take a big bite out of your budget. Plus, the new hardback edition is priced A LOT lower than those overpriced, out-of-print first editions that I’ve seen out there.
When you go to the Miskatonic site, you’ll find two different Azoth Press Offering to Isis editions. For the high rollers, there will be 36 copies in a gorgeous leather-bound and numbered collector’s edition. For the rest of us, there will be 650 numbered, limited edition copies in a cloth-bound hardcover. Both editions are two-color throughout, and more than 400 pages.
Thank you so much for letting me interrupt our regularly scheduled blog post to tell you about this new edition. And would you please do me a favor and share this information with anyone who you think might be interested? Feel free to ask me any questions about Offering to Isis that you’d like, too.
I’m definitely looking forward to getting my copy of this beautiful, new edition of Offering to Isis.
And while you might think it’s strange, even though I wrote the book, I still use it for reference when I’m making offering to Isis. I use the information in it as well as the Invocation Offerings. I hope this new edition will serve you well, too.
The Temple of Isis at Dendera
I finally got my interlibrary loan of Egyptologist Silvie Cauville’s Dendara: Le temple d’Isis. And the minute I starting perusing this two-volume set, I knew I wanted to own a copy. So Adam got it for me for my birthday. Yippee!
So now I get to tell you what I’ve been learning.
The first thing to know is that, just as Isis is very present in Hathor’s great temple, so Hathor is present in Isis’ smaller Dendera temple.
And, as with many of Egypt’s temples, the current remains sit atop older structures. What we see today at Hathor’s temple is mainly Ptolemaic, while the bulk of what remains of Isis’ temple was constructed under the Ptolemies but completed and decorated during Augustus’ Roman rule.
Hathor’s worship at Dendera is much more ancient than the Ptolemaic period. There is evidence of a temple there from about 2250 BCE, during the reign of Pepi I. There’s also evidence of an 18th-dynasty temple. The Isis temple has earlier roots, too. There are vestiges of structures from the dynastic reigns of Amenemhat I (1991-1962 BCE), Thutmose III (1479-1425 BCE), and Rameses II (1279-1213 BCE). During the reign of Nectanebo I, the temple of Isis served as a mammisi for Isis as She births Horus.
One of the interesting things about the temple of Isis at Dendera is that, due to its older substructures, its current configuration has two main axes: east-west and north-south. Thus the temple opens to all four directions. The main temple entrance and hypostyle hall align with the heliacal rising in the eastern sky of the star of Isis. Sirius’ rising marked the coming of the Inundation and initiated the Egyptian New Year. Opposite, in the west, is the point of descent for Isis’ beloved, Osiris Lord of the Westerners. The north-south axis is marked by carved Hathor heads and connects that Goddess with Her father Re at Heliopolis to the north and with Her spouse Horus at Edfu to the south.
Blocks from the mammisi of Nectanebo’s time were reused in the Ptolemaic/Augustan temple that we see the remains of today. This temple celebrates the birth of Isis Herself. Her mother Nuet births Her Great Daughter upon the primal Birth Mound, the First Earth. The temple (you will sometimes see it called the Iseum) also celebrates the sovereignty of Isis.
Here then, the Goddess Whose name means “Throne” is the guardian of the throne of Egypt, protectress of the king, and is Herself the regent of all of Egypt. Her Dendera temple is also the place of Her coronation as Divine Queen of the Universe. To me, this universal rulership of Isis is echoed by the temple’s four-directional doorways. Her ruling energy radiates from Her temple out to every corner of the world, if you will. And, if you recall, we learned several weeks ago that Isis’ rulership is so potent that She ruled the Two Lands even even before She was born, from within Her Great Mother’s womb.
Dendera’s temple of Isis consists of three main chambers, the Per Wer, “Great House,” the Per Nu, “House of Water,” and the Per Neser, “House of Fire.” These chambers are also found in the Hathor temple, along the north-south axis. I was familiar with the Per Nu, the water sanctuary, but the fire sanctuary—the Per Neser—was new to me. There is also an offering vestibule in front of these chambers.
It pleases me no end that in our own home shrines and altars, we can easily replicate this ancient Egyptian temple structure.
The altar is our Per Wer, where the sacred image or images of our Divine Ones live and receive offerings. The Per Nu is where our purifying and libation waters, cups, and other vessels are placed (mine is to the left of the altar). The Per Neser is where the candles, incense, charcoal, and lighters are kept (right side for me). My collection of sistra is also on the Per Neser side. In the House of Isis (see Isis Magic), the sistrum corresponds to Fire because of its ability to “shake things up.” In Egyptian, to “play the sistrum” is iri sakhem, “to do power.” The sistrum is thus an energy generator; very fiery.
I love all this so much that I fully intend to call these parts of Her shrine by these names from here on out.
Since there is so little left of this temple, that about wraps up our tour of the building itself. Next time, I’ll be looking into the inscriptions to see if I can find any new and interesting epithets or lore of the Goddess that I can share with you.
What about you? Do you have a special place near your altar that serves as your Per Nu and Per Neser?
Isis & Nephthys: the Mysteries of the Kites
This is a longish post because I found out some things I didn’t know about the Kite, the Kites, and Isis and Nephthys as the Kites. I’ll bet you’ll find out something you didn’t know, too.
Now, what you may already know is that the most consistent avian form that Isis and Nephthys take is the black kite. Black kites are birds of prey. They eat carrion and they hunt live prey. And one of the things I just learned is why they are called “kites.” It’s from their characteristic hunting technique in which they hover over the prey (like a paper kite does at the end of its string) and then do a swift dive to capture it. This highly successful hunting move is called “kiting.”
So today, we’re looking into the Kites, especially (but not exclusively) the Divine Kites, the Goddess Kites. We often see Them as Isis and Nephthys at the head and foot of Osiris’ mummy bier. Sometimes They are in Their bird form, sometimes fully anthropomorphic, and sometimes combining the two forms as women with wings.
In other images, we see Isis as a kite hovering (kiting!) over the erect phallus of a mummyform Osiris in order to conceive Their child Horus. We also find the Kite/s in funerary processions and in the Opening of the Mouth ritual. The Opening of the Mouth is a funerary rite; its main purpose is enlivening. It was used to give life or renewed life to everyone and everything from the mummified king to the sacred statues and images in a temple.
Egyptologist Racheli Shalomi-Hen notes that the first appearance of a Kite or Kites is in depictions of non-royal funerary processions of the late 5th dynasty of Egypt’s Old Kingdom. We know who the Kites are in these depictions because they are labeled. In Egyptian, Kite is Djeret while the Two Kites are the Djereti.
Egyptologists usually group the Kite/s in with other professional mourners (as opposed to mourners from the family of the deceased). This is probably because, once the Kites were connected with Isis and Nephthys, They were mourning Osiris. But the Kites seem to have other functions as well.
If the Kites were professionals, it must mean that their roles required special knowledge and skills. Just speculating here, but I wonder whether they were specialized priestesses of some kind. (As an aside, the Kites were also associated with another special funerary ritualist, the Demdjet. You can read about the Demdjet here.)
Shalomi-Hen suggests that the appearance of the Kite/s in these non-royal tombs is an indication that the non-royal dead were already identified with Osiris by that time—earlier that usually thought. At that time, she says, the Kites were not associated with the Goddesses; they were human funerary ritualists.
She proposes that it was only after the king wanted to be an Osiris, too, that the Kites gained Divine and mythological status—and that this was done for the first time in the Pyramid Texts.
Other Egyptologists think that the basic Egyptian myth cycles, including the Osirian, may have been formed as early as the 2nd or 3rd dynasties—though we have nothing of length written down until the Pyramid Texts.
I’m not convinced that the Osirian myth we find in the Pyramid Texts represents the first time that this myth cycle was formulated. In the Pyramid Texts, we already see the characteristic mythological allusions that assume that scribes and educated readers (such as the priesthood concerned with funerary rites) would understand the reference to the whole myth from just the allusion. If this were the first time the myth was formulated, they would not have been able to do so. Instead, this must mean that—even before such allusions were written down in the Pyramid Texts—there was an oral tradition, and that is where the Osirian cycle first emerged.
In the illustration from one of these non-royal funerals (above), you can see that there isn’t anything particularly bird-like in the Kite’s dress or implements; indeed she has no implements and wears only the usual Old Kingdom sheath dress. Yet she is called the Kite. What then is the connection between the black kite and funeral rites?
Some scholars have suggested that the cry of the black kite may have sounded to the Egyptians like mourning women. I’ve listened to a number of recordings of black kite calls and…maybe? The closest one I’ve found is the warbling call in the last part of this video. The wavering cry sounds vaguely mournful. On the other hand, the kite also has a sharp cry, which caused another Egyptologist to suggest that the kite’s cry might have been thought to wake the dead. Yet another offers that the kite’s participation in funerals may have developed from a prehistoric hunting ritual. I wanted to look into that a bit, so I dug up that article.
In it, Egyptologist Eberhard Otto notes that the Kite is also present in some versions of the Opening of the Mouth ritual—in the part where the foreleg of the bull/bull calf is being cut off and its heart cut out. Sometimes, this female ritualist is identified simply as the Kite or the Great Kite. Sometimes there are two ritualists, the Great Kite and the Small Kite, Who later were identified with Isis and Nephthys.
In versions of the ritual where the Kite is present, she/She whispers into the ear of the sacrificial animal, blaming it for its own death. She says, “Your two lips have done that against you.”
Egyptologist Maria Valdesogo Martín identifies the Kite in the New Kingdom scene from the Opening of the Mouth shown here specifically as a mourner. This would be consistent with the well-known functions of the Kite at that time—as well as with the identification of the Great Kite as Isis. And mourning the slain animal is certainly an improvement over victim-blaming.
Nonetheless, this incident did remind me of the myth of the Contendings of Horus and Set in which Isis, in disguise as a maiden-in-distress, tricks Set into admitting that Osiris’ kingdom should go to Horus. Significantly, She first transforms into a kite, then flies into a tree and screeches, “Ha! Your own words have condemned You!”
Otto thinks that the Opening of the Mouth scene with the Kite is the part that may have originated in a prehistoric hunting ritual. He says the Kite is a later representation of a wild kite circling the body of a slain animal. The shrieking cries of the bird may have been interpreted as speech—which in later periods developed into the Kite blaming the animal for its death and, eventually, to mourning.
We begin to see Two Kites rather than just one in depictions of private funerary processions during the 5th dynasty, with most in the 6th dynasty. In the Pyramid Texts of the 5th and 6th dynasties, decidedly royal texts, we learn that the “Djereti of Osiris,” Who can only be Isis and Nephthys, “remove the ill” from the king as part of the preparation for his ascent to the heavens. In other words, They purify the king. What the Kites are removing is said to be poison, which is envisioned as venom from the fangs of a serpent that pours into the ground as the Kites supervise the action.
The Kites also help ferry the deceased king, as Osiris, “across the Winding Waterway” to the Horizon (Akhet) and rebirth. In tomb chapels of the same period as the Pyramid Texts, Kites are shown at the bow and stern of a boat that carries the coffin. We know that they/They are mourning for they/They make known mourning gestures in some cases and protective gestures in others. In these tomb chapels, the Djereti may or may not be identified as Isis and Nephthys.
We also find the Djereti represented on model boats since the Kites ferry the dead to rebirth. And here’s something really interesting.
One model boat from the Middle Kingdom includes the names of the Goddesses preceding what seem to be personal names. We see “the Nephthys Hotep-Hathor, justified” and “the Isis Hetpet, justified.” When a human name is followed by maakheru or “justified,” it means that the person is dead and has passed the judgment of Osiris. Perhaps what we are seeing here is previously deceased female relatives of the newly dead person serving as Isis and Nephthys for the deceased to help their loved one cross the Winding Waterway to rebirth.
In addition, the Kites were sometimes connected with the mummy wrappings. The Goddess of Weaving, Tayet, is sometimes identified as a Kite. Isis and Nephthys, known as the Two Weavers, are also Weaving Goddesses. There are a few Old Kingdom reliefs and paintings that show pairs of women labeled as Kites carrying boxes of offerings on their heads. In one example, we learn that they are “bringing khenit-cloth.” Khenit means “yellow” and yellow is the same as gold in Egyptian color symbolism. Thus, this cloth is solar and refers to the daily solar resurrection. Here again, we have the Kites assisting in rebirth. These cloth-bringing Djereti also sometimes have personal names attached to them, indicating that they are human Kites.
By removing poisons, attending to the mummy wrappings, and bringing offerings of yellow cloth, the Kites surely were part of the magical and physical preparation of the body and the tomb, just as female relatives were and are in so many societies, ancient and modern. Perhaps the professional Kites even guided or assisted the relatives of the deceased in these tasks.
Yet so far—with the exception of the kite’s cry interpreted as speech to the sacrificial victim or the possibility that their raptor-cries sounded like mourning—there doesn’t seem to be anything very kite-like or bird-like in the funerary function of the Kites.
But then there are those wings. Those bird wings, those kite wings.
The wings of Isis and Nephthys are Their most obvious avian attributes. As birds, the Kites fly; as birds of prey, They hunt.
As far back as the Pyramid Texts, the Two Sisters are the ones Who seek—or hunt for—Their missing brother Osiris. Their wings give Them the power to search a vast territory in a shorter period of time. Their lofty vantage point and sharp birds-of-prey vision make Them successful in their hunt.
In the Pyramid Texts, Osiris has not been dismembered, only killed. Yet when His dismemberment does become part of the myth, it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine the carrion-bird Sisters scavenging for the parts of the God’s body to re-assemble Him and make Him whole.
In the Hymn to Osiris in the Book of the Dead, Isis uses Her wings to revive Osiris enough so that She can conceive Their child and heir. “She made light with Her feathers, She created air with Her wings, and She uttered the death wail for Her brother. She raised up the inactive members of Him whose heart was still, She drew from Him His essence, She made an heir…” the text tells us.
In Egyptian lore, wings are also protective. Many are the Goddesses, wings outspread, Who protect tombs, sarcophagi, doorways, and temples. There are also a number of surviving statues of a larger Isis with a smaller image of Osiris protected between Her wings.
I remain on the lookout for more about the Kite Goddesses (as well as the human Kites). But for now we can know that Their wings are protective, Their cry can be mournful or accusatory, Their wings and vision make Them successful hunters and searchers, They can purify and prepare the dead for resurrection, and They can help “ferry” the dead toward the Horizon of Rebirth.
SunFest 2025: The Return of the Wandering Goddess
June 27-29, 2025 Portland Oregon area
Bonus post this week because I’m excited to tell you about our upcoming summer solstice festival for 2025. SunFest 2025 is being put on by Other Worlds of Wonder (OWOW), please visit their website at the link below. I am serving as ritual facilitator—along with a truly wonderful Crewe of ritualists and craftspeople. It is going to be pure magic!
The Myth of the Wandering Goddess is one of the two most important myths of ancient Egypt. Just about every town or region had its own version of the festival that celebrated this myth. Although different Goddesses were the “Wandering Goddess” in each local area, our festival celebrates the power of Sakhmet and the ecstasy of Hathor.
During SunFest 2025, we’ll explore this important myth in a highly immersive, highly participatory way. Each ritual, presentation, or workshop is designed to draw us into the overall myth so that—together—we will live our own version of that myth as well as celebrating the festival that surrounded it.
The festival takes place Friday through Sunday. Every ritual or event brings us into the myth/s and the ancient festival so that we can discover more about these Great Egyptian Goddesses for ourselves.
Friday
Creating Altars & Invoking Hathor & Sakhmet
Our first ritual act is to create altars for the Goddesses and to invoke Their presence to our festival. You’re invited to bring items to add to the altar. We will create it together as part of the rite. Then, with the altars prepared, we invoke our two festival Goddesses, the Fierce Goddesses of the Solar Eye: Hathor, the Golden One, and Sakhmet, the Powerful One.
Through our desire, through our invocations, through our music, and our moving bodies, we call upon our Goddesses to be present with us during this festival.
Sedj Desherut, the Ritual of Breaking Red Pots
The ancient Egyptian Ritual of Breaking Red Pots was performed to protect against enemies, physical and/or spiritual. Archeologists have found fragments of the pots that had been inscribed with curses against said enemies. In our version, we will join with Sakhmet in Her righteous anger against the injustice in the world and smash our own “red pots.” By expressing our rage, both personal and societal, we begin the Sacred Work of becoming purified and renewed.
At the end of this ritual, the Goddess Sakhmet departs from us and we are now without the powerful protection of our Goddess.
Seducing Sakhmet, Dancing for Her
The Hathoru, sacred enticers of the Goddess Hathor, will help us get the Friday night drumming and dancing going with a calling for the absent Goddess and a chant to seduce Her to return.
Saturday
Workshop: The Myth of the Wandering Goddess
I’ll present a Keynote talk to explain the importance of this myth to ancient Egypt and provide background to help us understand the rituals and activities of the festival.
At the end of the presentation, we’ll have the opportunity to experience the energies of both Sakhmet and Hathor for ourselves.
Sehotep Sakhmet; Pouring Out Red Beer for Her
Five gallons of red beer are being ritually brewed as an offering to Sakhmet, so that we may appease Her wrath and coax Her to return to us. Without our Fierce Goddess, we, like the Sun God Re, are vulnerable. The First Servant of Sakhmet will lead us in a prayer and chant to the Goddess. Then we will pour out the blood-red beer into the fields in hopes that the Goddess will be pleased and made peaceful through it.
Workshop: Creating Offerings
We’ll break into 5 groups, our “villages.” Each village will work together to create an offering for the Returning Goddess—as She has been promised by Thoth, the God of Wisdom, if She agrees to return home.
The Return of the Wandering Goddess; Hathor is in Joy
Wise Thoth has followed the Lioness Goddess to Nubia and has entertained Her with many excellent tales. He has coaxed Her to return home, promising offerings, dancing, and feasting in Her honor.
Join us at the riverbank, our isheru, where the Returning Goddess is renewed in the Deep Primordial Waters. We, like our Goddess, will be purified and renewed as well. By our rites and in these Waters, Red Sakhmet transforms Herself into Turquoise Hathor, the Intoxicating One.
Then we walk together in procession as we make music and throw flower petals in the path of the Returning Goddess—and at each other, if we’re feeling playful. The Goddess’ reed boat stops at each village and we present our offerings to Her.
Community Picnic
We join together in the main meadow to feast with our Community and in honor of our Goddesses, Hathor and Sakhmet, and Thoth.
Blessings of the Seven Hathors
As the sun sets, we are called once more to gather at the Fire Circle. The Goddess will be present in 7 different forms and She will bless us in return for the offerings we created and presented to Her earlier.
There is no formal end to the ritual. We drum and dance our way into the night as we so desire.
Sunday
Pouring Out Pure Milk for Her
This is the closing ritual for the festival. We pour out pure milk in thanks to Sakhmet, Hathor, and Thoth, then ritually release Their Presences by extinguishing our fiery torches in the sacred milk of the Goddess.
The rite also incorporates OWOW’s traditional gift exchange. If you wish to participate, bring a small gift with you as a thanksgiving to be given to someone in our community, and you will receive one in return.
PLUS—Other workshops on Sunday!
How to Register
Is Isis Calling Me?
The is one of the most popular posts on Isiopolis. I’m reposting it today as I’m totally booked—with all kinds of good things. Goddesses, magic, and wonderful people! Hope you’ll enjoy it a second time around.
One of the questions I regularly receive from folks who email me is, “how can I tell if Isis is calling me?”
It’s a very good question, if a somewhat difficult one to answer. Sometimes, people have had dreams with what they think could be Isiac imagery. Sometimes they’ve had a vision or some other experience during a ritual. Sometimes it’s a feeling, sometimes a wish or a hope.
What Do We Mean by “Calling”?
To try to unravel this, the first thing we need to figure out is what we mean by “calling?” In other words, if She were calling us, what would that mean? What kind of obligation, if any, comes with that calling? Because so many of us have Christianity in our personal backgrounds as well as Christianity being so prominent in our societies, we might automatically associate “a calling” with a vocation for the ministry or priesthood. It’s certainly possible. But there are other possibilities, too.
What calling means to us can also depend on where we are in our spiritual journey, as well as what we’ve been studying or reading or thinking.
For instance, let’s say you’re very interested in ancient Egypt, you’ve been reading about it, and you’re in a spiritual circle of some kind that regularly invokes Deities. Then one night, you have a powerful dream in which a beautiful, Egyptian woman seems to welcome you. You think She might be Isis. She might, indeed. She could also be one of any number of Egyptian Goddesses, which you would know about from your reading. What you intuit from your own dream will be very helpful here. If you think She’s Isis, you can follow that thread. We’ll talk about that shortly.
For another instance, let’s say you’ve never had any particular connection with ancient Egypt and you’re not on any specific spiritual path. Then one night, you have a powerful dream in which a beautiful, Egyptian woman seems to welcome you. You think She might be Isis. This may be just a dream. But if you find it exceptionally powerful, keep looking. A dream like that might be pointing out that your soul is yearning for some positive Mother or Divine Feminine energy in your life. That knowledge, in and of itself, is very valuable information. On the other hand, such a dream could be the impetus to set you on a spiritual journey as you seek to learn more.
And for a third instance, let’s say you have that same dream. But you don’t feel that you’re ready—or that you even want to—do anything about it. You absolutely don’t have to. If it’s an important knock on your spiritual door, She’ll knock again. And it’s okay to say no. You won’t hurt Her feelings and there are no negative consequences.
Dreams & Signs
So. Dreams are one way to hear Isis if She’s calling you. But if you, like me, are a crappy dreamer and neither remember them nor write them down, there are other ways to hear Her. There are usually signs. Signs can be tricky. In most cases, a sign is something unusual that catches your attention and relates to the particular Deity involved, in our case, Isis. Because She is a Bird Goddess, it might be wings and feathers. You may hear the sound of wings at an odd time. Or a bird swoops down immediately in your line of sight, startling you. Or a feather drops from the sky. Her symbols—like the Knot of Isis or a throne—might show up unexpectedly. Perhaps you overhear Her name in a passing conversation between strangers. This will happen, not just once, but many times. Be patient. Wait. And look and listen for the signs.
Now, if you’re actively wanting Her to be calling you, signs and synchronicities can ramp up. Does a breeze rustle the leaves of a tree as you pass, thinking of Her? It is Her breath. Have you found a piece of jewelry engraved with Her image? She confirms your Path. Did that hawk circle above you as you drive your car down a country road with Her name on your lips? She is guiding you.
Is it foolish to see these signs everywhere? Is it “just my imagination?” In some cases, sure, there will be a kind of confirmation bias. But that doesn’t matter; She’s on your mind. You’re thinking of Her. It has begun.
Sometimes, there are other ways to tell. You might have an intuition of Her presence about you. Or something weird might happen. I’ve had incense burn and disappear all by itself, strangers have given me unexpected Isis gifts, very loud disembodied voices have spoken my name. What your weird thing might be, I can’t say.
Pick Up the Phone Yourself
Now. There’s also an important secret about all this that I’d like to share with you. Two, really. The first is that if you want to connect with Isis, you don’t have to wait for Her to call you. You can call Her, too. Light a candle. Say a prayer. Ask Her to come into your life. If you like ritual, use the Opening of the Ways here.
The second is that being called by Isis doesn’t necessarily mean you are being called to a lifelong relationship with Her. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being called to serve as Her priestess, priestex, or priest. It might mean you’re being called to learn more about Her—right now and perhaps only for a while. Perhaps you’re being called to relationship. And like any relationship, that means investing time. Spend time with Her, in meditation and prayer. Read about Her in anything and everything you can get your hands on. Get to know Her. See how She feels to you. Do you like Her energy? Does it fit with yours? That’s what I mean by following the thread…and just see where it leads you.
And if you find, after time, that this is not the relationship for you, that’s perfectly okay. You will have learned. You will have grown and your spiritual world will have been expanded.
But if you find that, like me, you are a lifetime (or at least long term) devotee of Isis, then I know you will discover for yourself Her deep love, wisdom, power, and magic.
Join Me at Spirit Northwest
Hello, all!
This is for those of you in the greater Pacific Northwest.
I’m excited to be one of the presenters at Spirit Northwest, a new conference for “Paganism, witchcraft, and natural magic” being held in Portland, Oregon. The conference is May day weekend: May 1-4, 2025.
One of the things I am loving about SPW is that they’re scheduling longer presentations—not just 45 minutes. That means we can really get into some depth with the topics. So you better believe I applied for one of those 2-hour spots asap.
I’ll be there on Saturday, but the event goes from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon. Check out the website here. And the whole schedule here. Rituals! Learning! Meeting new folks!
Since we have the time, for my presentation, we’ll be both talking together AND a doing a ritual. It’s called “Under the Wings of Isis: the Greater Mysteries of Making Offering.”
So first, we’ll talk about the traditions and techniques of ancient Egyptian offering rites—going into some depth about how offering really works—then we’ll participate together as we “Open the Ways” to Isis and make offering to Her, receiving Her magic and protection in return.
We’ll be doing the talk part “Hermetic Society” style, meaning that you can ask questions and make comments during the talk. It’s a bit more chaotic, but it’s also more fun, too, for me and for you. And yes, this will be a presentation with pretty pictures, because who doesn’t like to look at pictures?
I wanted to let you know about this a bit early so there’s time for budgeting 
And here’s some more good news: the second edition of Offering to Isis, Knowing the Goddess through Her Sacred Symbols should be/will be out by the time. It’s available for pre-order now here or click on the book cover in the sidebar.
In fact, it’s being printed even as we speak and I hope to have some books with me (fingers crossed) for the conference.
Your hosts for the conference are the creators of That Witch Life podcast, so do have a listen.
If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come join us!
A Meditation within the Heart of Isis
The spring equinox approaches. Okay, I’m anticipating…just a tad. But winter is ending. And we continue both our work in the world and our Great Work within.
Today I’d like to share a meditation from Isis Magic, slightly modified, which I hope may offer some hope and strength. You may, as I do, find it a little challenging right now—because it opens up space for gratitude, yes, even in this terrible time.
Where to do the meditation is up to you. In front of your altar is always good or, if the weather is clement enough, outside might be even better—for we can sometimes sense Isis’ heartbeat more easily in nature.
We start with the Wings and Breath of Isis. We invoke and connect with Her as we sense Isis’ mighty heart. With our own hearts opening, opening to Her, we give voice to things for which we are grateful—anything from the warm scent of cat fur to the beauty of the day to the love of our friends and activities of our communities. And try to actually speak these gratitudes out loud if you can. The power of heka, magic, is in the word—and this is intensified when spoken.
I hope you will join me in this meditation as we begin to welcome the light of coming spring.
The Wings & Breath of Isis
Stand, with your arms at your sides, facing east. Inhale while simultaneously bringing your hands together at the level of your abdomen and cradling one palm in the other. With this breath, be aware that you are gathering strength. Exhale while simultaneously raising and spreading out your arms like wings unfurling. The arms should be slightly curved, with the palms facing out and slightly above the shoulders. With this exhalation, be aware that you are expending your personal energy to reach out to Isis. Breathe in and say:
“I am a Child of Isis. I am a Beloved of the Goddess.” (Repeat this as many times as you need in order to feel that it is so.)
Now turn your palms inward, forming a cup with your arms. Inhale and imagine you are drawing in the breath of Isis and it fills the cup of your arms. Exhale and open out your arms, allowing them to slowly arc down to your sides. As you exhale, imagine sharing the blessings of Isis with all the earth. To complete the sign, return to the first position.
Greeting the Goddess
Be seated comfortably, breathe, and begin chanting Her name. You may use any of Her epithets you like. (Maybe even try some from last week’s post?) Or simply chant Her name as Isis or Iset or Ise. When you sense Her presence, stop. Breathe deeply and slowly. Know that you are breathing the breath of Isis the Goddess. Try to match your breath to Her breath.
Heart Joined to Heart
Now, begin to sense Isis’ heartbeat. It is within Her and it is all around you. Listen to Her beating heart. Her heartbeat is in all things. In the breath of the sky. In the song of birds. In the wind moving through grass and trees. In the flowing of the waters. In the thrumming of the great, deep Earth.
Listen and find the rhythm of the heartbeat of Isis, the Great Goddess. Become very aware of that rhythm.
Now, become aware of your own heart—awakened and alive and open to Her within your body. Place your finger on your pulse if need be to feel the heartbeat of your own life.
Now see if you can attune your human heart to the rhythm of Her Divine and Living Heart. Let it slow or speed to meet Hers. Attune your heart to Hers until you sense the two hearts beat in harmony.
Read the following aloud, speaking these Words of Power, and taking time to confirm the truth of these potent words in your heart:
“My Mother. My heart. My Mother. My heart.
“I am aware in my heart. I am in power in my heart. I am aware and in power in my heart, which is the heart given to me by my human mother—and by my Great Mother Isis.
“My Mother. My heart. My Mother. My heart.
“I am intelligent in my heart. I am compassionate in my heart. I am intelligent and compassionate in my heart, which is the heart which drums in rhythm with the heart of Isis, the Radiant One.
“My Mother. My heart. My Mother. My heart.
“I am alive in my heart. I am full in my heart. I am alive and full in my heart, the center of all Being, the beginning of all Becoming. I am alive and full in my heart, and my heart knows all the joys of my life.
“In the fullness of my Being, I am Becoming joy-full. The Star of Isis arises—all will be well. Isis comes—peace returns to me. I am sitting in the Throne of Abundance bathed in Her Light. Once again, I attune my human heart to Her Divine heart.”
Thanksgiving
Close your eyes and open your heart. Know you are protected by the wings and centered in the heart of Isis. Then name aloud some things you are grateful for. Don’t stress if nothing comes to mind right away. Just wait patiently. When you’re ready to name them, say:
“I am grateful for (naming as many things as you can).”
When you have completed your thanksgiving, say:
“My Mother. My heart. My Mother. My heart. I am aware in my heart and I am grateful in my heart. You have blessed me, Isis, and I am thankful, Great Goddess, in return. Amma, Iset. Grant that it ever be so.”
Complete the meditation by rising and working the Wings and Breath of Isis one more time.
Hymns to Isis of 10,000 Names from Denderah
One thing I learned from our Egyptian visit to the Great Temple of Hathor at Denderah, is just how very, very, very present Isis is in this entire temple complex.
I knew that, just as Hathor has a small temple at Isis’ great Philae sanctuary, so Isis had a small temple at Hathor’s great sanctuary at Denderah. But I didn’t know how present Isis is within Hathor’s temple itself.
So, today I’d like to share with you some of the praises and epithets of Isis found within the great Hathor temple. They can be used and/or adapted through your own creativity for ritual use. The translations come from Egyptologist Sylvie Cauville’s Dendara: Hymnes à Hathor et à Isis. So they are my English translations (with help from Google Translate) of her French translations of the hieroglyphs. I’m awaiting an interlibrary loan of her book on all the texts from Isis’ small temple at Denderah. I’ll share those with you in the future.
But for today, let’s look at some of the ways Isis was understood at Denderah. Since most of the remains at Denderah are Ptolemaic, we won’t be surprised to find Isis expressing Herself there in many of Her ten thousand names. Here’s an example:
Isis the Great, Mother of the God, Mistress of the Birth Mound, Who takes Her place in Denderah, Lady of the Beginning of the Year, Queen of Messengers, Who appears at the New Year to open the Beautiful Year. [She is] Amunet (the Goddess counterpart of Amun) at Thebes, Menhit (a Lioness Goddess) in Heliopolis, Renpet (“Year”) is Your name in Memphis, Sothis (Sopdet, the Star Goddess) in Elephantine, Hededyt (a Scorpion Goddess) in Edfu, the Venerable Vulture (the Goddess Nekhbet), the ruler of Hierakonpolis (Nekhen), the Feminine Heliopolitan One in Denderah, Daughter of Nuet, brought into the world in the Birth Mound on the beautiful day of the Child-in-His-Nest, the One Who takes flight again towards the sky; Heqet (the Frog Goddess) in Abydos, Seshat (the Scribe Goddess) in Hermopolis, Djedet (“Word” or “Great Word,” Djedet Weret) is Your name in Busiris, the Mysterious One in Bubastis, Ipyt (a Hippopotamus Fertility Goddess) in Pe, Depet (“the One of Dep”) in Dep, Neith in Sais, Wadjet in Nebecheh (the location of a temple of Wadjet), Hathor in all the land. She is the One Who dwells in every city and in every nome with Her son Horus and Her brother Osiris.
Those of you who have seen the Oxyrhynchus aretalogy of Isis will recognize this format: give Her name and then the place in which She is called by that name (or vice versa).
On one of the pylon doorways at Denderah, where both Goddesses are invoked, we learn this of Isis’ power:
She is the Sovereign of the Palace, the Ruler, the Mistress of Writing. She announces what will happen in the future. Life is in Her hand, health is in Her fist, one does not oppose what comes from Her mouth. She takes care of the one who is not unfaithful to Her and defends the one She loves on the day of the “fight in the arena” (I assume this means during challenging times; but I supposed it could be something more specific, too). She is the irreproachable protector of those who have nothing and those who have everything. What She conceives happens forever. She comforts the unfortunate with Her word at the closing gate. She is Seshat the Great, the Primordial, the First Who Inaugurated Writing, the First Who is Brought into the World Among the Goddesses.
On the doors of the “Mysterious Corridor,” Isis is praised as the Powerful One. Re is said to shine in the horizon (akhet) when He sees Her and human beings come to Her to make Her heart joyful. In the Isis Chapel within the Hathor temple, She is called by many of the titles we have already seen, but She is also the Queen of Egypt in its Entirety, the Great One in Heaven, the Powerful One on Earth, the Primordial One Who Created the First Time (Zep Tepi) and All Good Things—which She shares with those She loves. She “dispenses the Commandments in the places of worship.” What must happen “happens when You [Isis] order it.” She is “excellent and beautiful.” She is “the Female Ibis Without Her Equal, the Mistress of Writing, the Sovereign of the Library.” She is the ruler of the orb of the sun and of the stars. As Sothis, She is the One Who Brings the Flood to “create life for the living.” She is the Eye of Re and the Unique Uraeus serpent.
She is also called Horet, the Female Horus. Her favors to Her devotees are great as is Her love. She is the Hand of God with inexhaustible benevolence. And Her true name is Isis (but also The Golden). This is very reminiscent of Apuleius’ aretalogy of Isis in which the Goddess lists many of the names by which human beings know Her, but finally states that Her true name is Queen Isis.
Quite a few of the Isiac hymns in the Denderah temple repeat many of the epithets we’ve already seen, so I’m trying to pick out the ones I find interesting and that I think you may also find interesting.
For instance, epithets from the Denderah Chapel of Water and Chapel of the Crown call Isis the Great Oracle Who Arrived at the Beginning and the Oracle Who Announces What Will Happen in the Future. These would be perfect epithets to use when reading Tarot or using another divination system under Her auspices. The Chapel of Water also says that She makes the Inundation flow to “invigorate the hearts of the Guardian Gods;” so another protective function. Her Ka is praised and She is called the Living Ba. She is the Lady of East, South, West, and North.
In the Chamber of Fabrics, Isis is identified with Tayet, the Weaving Goddess. The text says that the Divine Fabric is made for Her Ka and that She is Mistress of the White, Green, Purple/Blue, and Red fabrics.
One of the things especially celebrated at Denderah is the birth of Isis. Her birth is connected to the epagomenal days when She rises as Sirius before the sun to mark the New Year.
In the Chapel of the Sistrum, it is said that Isis “took possession of the royal office even before She left the womb; She ruled the throne from Her swaddling clothes.” I’m guessing we’ll learn more about Her birth when I get that interlibrary loan of the texts from the small Temple of Isis.
On the exterior temple walls, Isis is said to be born “in the form of a black-haired woman, full of life, Sovereign of the Ennead, Ruler of Magic.” More of Her ten thousand names are added in the pronaos of the temple: She is Amunet, Menhit, Renpet, Sothis, Nekhbet, Tanenet (a Goddess of brewing and childbirth), Isis, Seshat, Heqet, and Wadjet. She is also the One Who Loves the Embrace, the Mistress of Life, Tayet, She Who Hears Everything, the Mysterious, Pyt (possibly a variation or misspelling of Ipyt), Depet, Neith, Khensyt (a Goddess of the royal crown), and Isis in every nome. She is the Mistress of Offerings, the Feminine Disk (of the sun), Mistress of Bread, Who Prepares Beer, and Lady of Exultation and Joy. She is the One Who is Rejuvenated in the Faiyum, Mistress of Life in Metenou (couldn’t find out where that is). In Mendes, She is the One Who Speaks. In Busiris, She is the One Who Hears Everything. And She is still The Mysterious in Bubastis.
The pronaos also notes that on the birthday of Isis, joy breaks out in Denderah and in Edfu. (Remember that these two temples are connected by the love connection between Hathor and Horus.) Heavenly Nuet gives birth to Isis—the Scholar for the Ennead—so that She may give birth to Horus the Avenger. The text says that Isis “was initiated into Wisdom as the Great One” and that the Goddesses come to see Her birth, wearing the menat-necklace and bearing the sistrum, “to appease the heart of The Magician (that is, Isis).”
That’s a lot of (hopefully) new and interesting epithets to work with for today. Any one of these epithets of Isis or Her identifications with other Goddesses would be a worthy subject for invocation and meditation.
Wandering Isis
Part 3
Let’s finish up our exploration of Isis as a Wandering Goddess by looking at some additional ways Isis’ story fits in with the myth of the Wandering/Distant/Returning Goddess. Last time we saw how Isis’ lioness form and the raped-Goddess theme fit in with other Wandering and Distant Goddesses, as well as how prevalent that myth was in the Delta—the place where Isis’ worship most likely originated.
So let’s see what else we can find out.
Eye of Re
In addition to being fierce and protective Lioness Goddesses, our Wandering Goddesses are also fierce and protective Eye Goddesses. Usually, They are Solar Eyes—Daughters of Re—hence Their fiery nature—though we saw that the Lioness Goddess Mehyt may be associated with the Udjat Eye, the full Lunar Eye, which in turn connects Her with the ever-so-famous Eye of Horus, son of Isis.
Isis is Herself a Divine Eye and Daughter of the Sun God Re. She is said to “emerge” from Re or “come forth” from His body. At Her Philae temple, inscriptions say that She “appears” as the Eye of Re. (On the other hand, as a Primordial Goddess, Isis is also said to give birth to Re, so there’s that.) Isis is called Re’et, the Female Re…indeed, at Denderah She is called “the Re’et of Re’ets,” that is, “Sun Goddess of Sun Goddesses,” and She is also Queen of the Re’et Goddesses. She is the Solar Eye, “the right eye of He Who shines like gold” and She is the solar disk, the Aten Itself. Hathor and Isis are the only Goddesses Who have the distinction of being identified as the solar disk itself. At Denderah, Isis is Re’et “in the dual course of the sun and the moon,” and so She encompasses both Solar and Lunar Eyes.
The Fiery Goddess strikes fear in the heart of Her, and Re’s, enemies. Her power can cause death “in this vigorous form” and She describes Herself as “She who triumphs, the companion of Re.” As the Sacred Eye, the Goddess coils as a uraeus serpent and third eye upon the Sun God’s brow, protecting Him and fighting an ongoing cosmic battle against His great opponent, the destructive Serpent Apop (Gr. Apophis). Inscriptions from Philae call Isis “Neseret-serpent on the head of Horus-Re, Eye of Re, the Unique Goddess, Uraeus” and “Eye of Re Who has No Equal in Heaven and on Earth.”
In addition to being a Divine Eye, we can also understand Isis as having particularly keen sight due to Her sharp raptor’s eyes. Her most prominent sacred bird is the kite hawk, whose sky-high viewpoint gives it an advantage in being able to see far distances, which could easily lead to the conclusion that it was All Seeing. In later periods of Her worship, Isis was invoked not only as “all-seeing,” but “many-eyed.”
Isidorus’ Faiyum hymns to the Goddess describe Her as gazing down on the activities of humanity and noting the individual virtues of human beings. Yet the glance of Isis’ sharp eye can have dire consequences for those who oppose Her. When the Ennead of the Gods is arguing over whether Horus or Set should receive Osiris’ throne, the Deities back down in the face of the anger and flashing eyes of Isis.
The Goddess Leaves the Premises
The next few pieces of our puzzle, I admit, are not as strong as the argument to date. We just don’t have a surviving Isis myth that’s close to Tefnut’s or Hathor/Sakhmet’s angry departure and joyful return. My guess is that Isis became so strongly associated with the Osirian myth cycle—and there were so many other Goddesses associated with the Wandering Goddess cycle—that there simply wasn’t a need for people to retain that particular myth—if there originally was one, as I think there was—in relation to Isis.
As Isis began to break away from the Goddess pack, so to speak, and Her worship spread not only throughout Egypt, but into the entire Mediterranean region and beyond, there was less and less reason to include that theme in Her worship. Instead, the very human, heart-touching emotionalism, tragedy, and eventual triumph of the Isis-Osiris-Horus myth took over…even as She was becoming, more and more, the Goddess of 10,000 Names.
And yet, Isis does wander. She wanders throughout the length and depth of Egypt searching for the pieces of Her Beloved’s body. She creates shrines in the major cities and towns of Egypt, so that Her story is known by all. The ubiquity of the Isis-Osiris myth was so prevalent that the historian Herodotus, in the 5th century BCE, had the impression that Isis and Osiris were the only two Deities universally worshiped in Egypt. Not only that, but we can imagine that Isis’ wandering is filled with grief and mourning, yes, but also with anger. If you have ever lost someone suddenly, you will understand, on a gut level, that anger is a very familiar part of mourning.
Is Induced to Return
Rather than being coaxed into returning home, however, Isis is more self-directed. She returns when Her task of gathering Osiris is complete and She has guided His resurrection and transformation into Lord of the Dead. Her concerns at home now turn to ensuring Horus takes His rightful place as king. And here again we see Her demonstrate the fiery power and righteous anger of the Divine Eye. Remember what we saw above regarding the Ennead backing down in the face of Her anger.
Is Pacified (and Goes on a Boat Ride)
Backing down and admitting that Horus should indeed be king, the Ennead pacifies Isis. Ah, so Our Lady did need a bit of placation after all. What’s more, at Hathor’s Denderah temple, where the two Goddesses are so, so close, we even find that Isis needed an isheru to cool Her off.
At Denderah, Hathor and Isis often mirror each other. In the main temple, we see Hathor on Her throne on one wall and Isis on another. Beneath Hathor’s throne we see 16 vases of Inundation water, one vase for each cubit of the ideal height for the Nile flood. The king offers Her a jar of Primordial Water, while Her son Ihy plays the sistrum and rattles the menat to sooth Her anger. On another wall in the same room, we find Isis enthroned. Beneath and around Her throne are the wavy lines that indicate water in a basin shaped roughly like an isheru. The inscription identifies it as precisely that by telling us that, “Her isheru lake is all around Her.”
This same scene, the two seated Goddesses with 16 vases beneath Hathor’s throne and an isheru surrounding that of Isis, is also found in Denderah’s so-called Chapel of Purification, the Per-Nu. And yet again, the same scene of Isis alone is found on another wall in a different room of the temple. As before, the enthroned Isis is seated over an isheru-shaped basin. The inscription reads, “Isis the Great . . . is seated/pacified in the isheru that is all around Her, Who crosses the lake within Her barque.” The inscriptions go on to describe Isis’ traveling on the isheru as a meeting with Her father Nun and tell us that He enfolds Her in His arms. Both Isis and Hathor are connected with the Inundation and the Primordial Waters. The Waters are offered by the king to Hathor since She regulates the ideal Inundation, while Isis, Who brings the Inundation, is embraced by Her father Who is said to be the primordial Watery Abyss Himself.
The Goddesses’ ritual travel by boat upon the isheru is known to Egyptologists as a navigation. (At Denderah, there were 9 navigations, by the way: one for each place the Goddess stopped on Her way back from Nubia.)
We might remember that Isis, too, has a rather famous navigation: the Navigium Isidis (the “ship of Isis” or “sailing of Isis”). I’m still trying to confirm the Egyptian word that was used for the “navigation” in the Hathor-Isis festival. There is an Egyptian word, khenet, which is related to other words having to do with boats, sailors, and navigation—as well as a festival of Osiris that featured a procession of boats—but I’m not sure whether the same word was used for the navigation of Isis and Hathor on the isheru.
Nevertheless, it is clear that at Denderah one of the things the Return of the Goddess was about was the return of the waters of the Inundation that would bring food and prosperity to Egypt. In addition, the rising river made the Nile more navigable for a wider variety of boats and ships. Just before the flood was the time of the river’s lowest, most-difficult-to-travel water levels. The Navigium Isidis (Gk: Ta Ploiaphesia; the Launching [of the Ship of Isis]), while not concerned with the water level or Inundation of the Nile, was concerned with the navigability of the Mediterranean Sea that would mark the start of the shipping season in spring.
Then Festival Ensues
We now come to the final element in the Wandering Goddess myth: Her joyful return and the Festival of Drunkenness. We have already seen evidence of such festivals for Mut, Tefnut, Bastet, Nehemant, and of course, Hathor. And I’m sure that, at Denderah, with the closeness of the Goddesses, Isis devotees would have participated with Hathor devotees during the festivals held there. There certainly were joyous festivals for Isis—She is, after all, called “the Festive Goddess.” Often, these were related to the conception and birth of Horus and the birthdays of Isis and Her siblings during the epagomenal days. What’s more, She is known as a joyful Goddess; temple inscriptions call Her the Queen of Joy, Lady of Rejoicing, and Lady of Jubilation. Deities and human beings rejoice when They/they see Her. Isis is called She Whose Heart is Open and Her joy is likened to the beauty of the full moon.
Still, we don’t have solid evidence of a full-fledged Festival of Drunkenness for Isis.
And yet.
There are these two little bits of graffiti from Her temple at Philae. They’re in bad shape. They’re from a late period. But one mentions a day of singing and drunkenness, the other notes a dedication to Hathor, a “house of greeting,” and “the place of drunkenness of the people.”
In fact, all of this makes sense. Philae was home to a temple of Hathor—just as Denderah included a temple of Isis. Philae was also Tefnut’s first stop on Her way back from Nubia.
It was at Philae that She changed from burning lioness to peaceful Goddess. So it may well be that—in that fluid way of Egyptian Goddesses and Their festivals—Isis-Hathor-Tefnut may have been celebrated with a Festival of Drunkenness at Philae, too. Since there is no temple calendar carved on the walls at Philae, we can’t be sure, but perhaps we will learn more from other discoveries as time goes on.
So, there you have it. It may have been that Our Lady Isis participated in both of the great mythic themes of ancient Egypt: the Isis & Osiris story as well as the myths of the Wandering/Distant/Returning Goddess.
Wandering Isis
Part 3
Let’s finish up our exploration of Isis as a Wandering Goddess by looking at some additional ways Isis’ story fits in with the myth of the Wandering/Distant/Returning Goddess. Last time we saw how Isis’ lioness form and the raped-Goddess theme fit in with other Wandering and Distant Goddesses, as well as how prevalent that myth was in the Delta—the place where Isis’ worship most likely originated.
So let’s see what else we can find out.
Eye of Re
In addition to being fierce and protective Lioness Goddesses, our Wandering Goddesses are also fierce and protective Eye Goddesses. Usually, They are Solar Eyes—Daughters of Re—hence Their fiery nature—though we saw that the Lioness Goddess Mehyt may be associated with the Udjat Eye, the full Lunar Eye, which in turn connects Her with the ever-so-famous Eye of Horus, son of Isis.
Isis is Herself a Divine Eye and Daughter of the Sun God Re. She is said to “emerge” from Re or “come forth” from His body. At Her Philae temple, inscriptions say that She “appears” as the Eye of Re. (On the other hand, as a Primordial Goddess, Isis is also said to give birth to Re, so there’s that.) Isis is called Re’et, the Female Re…indeed, at Denderah She is called “the Re’et of Re’ets,” that is, “Sun Goddess of Sun Goddesses,” and She is also Queen of the Re’et Goddesses. She is the Solar Eye, “the right eye of He Who shines like gold” and She is the solar disk, the Aten Itself. Hathor and Isis are the only Goddesses Who have the distinction of being identified as the solar disk itself. At Denderah, Isis is Re’et “in the dual course of the sun and the moon,” and so She encompasses both Solar and Lunar Eyes.
The Fiery Goddess strikes fear in the heart of Her, and Re’s, enemies. Her power can cause death “in this vigorous form” and She describes Herself as “She who triumphs, the companion of Re.” As the Sacred Eye, the Goddess coils as a uraeus serpent and third eye upon the Sun God’s brow, protecting Him and fighting an ongoing cosmic battle against His great opponent, the destructive Serpent Apop (Gr. Apophis). Inscriptions from Philae call Isis “Neseret-serpent on the head of Horus-Re, Eye of Re, the Unique Goddess, Uraeus” and “Eye of Re Who has No Equal in Heaven and on Earth.”
In addition to being a Divine Eye, we can also understand Isis as having particularly keen sight due to Her sharp raptor’s eyes. Her most prominent sacred bird is the kite hawk, whose sky-high viewpoint gives it an advantage in being able to see far distances, which could easily lead to the conclusion that it was All Seeing. In later periods of Her worship, Isis was invoked not only as “all-seeing,” but “many-eyed.”
Isidorus’ Faiyum hymns to the Goddess describe Her as gazing down on the activities of humanity and noting the individual virtues of human beings. Yet the glance of Isis’ sharp eye can have dire consequences for those who oppose Her. When the Ennead of the Gods is arguing over whether Horus or Set should receive Osiris’ throne, the Deities back down in the face of the anger and flashing eyes of Isis.
The Goddess Leaves the Premises
The next few pieces of our puzzle, I admit, are not as strong as the argument to date. We just don’t have a surviving Isis myth that’s close to Tefnut’s or Hathor/Sakhmet’s angry departure and joyful return. My guess is that Isis became so strongly associated with the Osirian myth cycle—and there were so many other Goddesses associated with the Wandering Goddess cycle—that there simply wasn’t a need for people to retain that particular myth—if there originally was one, as I think there was—in relation to Isis.
As Isis began to break away from the Goddess pack, so to speak, and Her worship spread not only throughout Egypt, but into the entire Mediterranean region and beyond, there was less and less reason to include that theme in Her worship. Instead, the very human, heart-touching emotionalism, tragedy, and eventual triumph of the Isis-Osiris-Horus myth took over…even as She was becoming, more and more, the Goddess of 10,000 Names.
And yet, Isis does wander. She wanders throughout the length and depth of Egypt searching for the pieces of Her Beloved’s body. She creates shrines in the major cities and towns of Egypt, so that Her story is known by all. The ubiquity of the Isis-Osiris myth was so prevalent that the historian Herodotus, in the 5th century BCE, had the impression that Isis and Osiris were the only two Deities universally worshiped in Egypt. Not only that, but we can imagine that Isis’ wandering is filled with grief and mourning, yes, but also with anger. If you have ever lost someone suddenly, you will understand, on a gut level, that anger is a very familiar part of mourning.
Is Induced to Return
Rather than being coaxed into returning home, however, Isis is more self-directed. She returns when Her task of gathering Osiris is complete and She has guided His resurrection and transformation into Lord of the Dead. Her concerns at home now turn to ensuring Horus takes His rightful place as king. And here again we see Her demonstrate the fiery power and righteous anger of the Divine Eye. Remember what we saw above regarding the Ennead backing down in the face of Her anger.
Is Pacified (and Goes on a Boat Ride)
Backing down and admitting that Horus should indeed be king, the Ennead pacifies Isis. Ah, so Our Lady did need a bit of placation after all. What’s more, at Hathor’s Denderah temple, where the two Goddesses are so, so close, we even find that Isis needed an isheru to cool Her off.
At Denderah, Hathor and Isis often mirror each other. In the main temple, we see Hathor on Her throne on one wall and Isis on another. Beneath Hathor’s throne we see 16 vases of Inundation water, one vase for each cubit of the ideal height for the Nile flood. The king offers Her a jar of Primordial Water, while Her son Ihy plays the sistrum and rattles the menat to sooth Her anger. On another wall in the same room, we find Isis enthroned. Beneath and around Her throne are the wavy lines that indicate water in a basin shaped roughly like an isheru. The inscription identifies it as precisely that by telling us that, “Her isheru lake is all around Her.”
This same scene, the two seated Goddesses with 16 vases beneath Hathor’s throne and an isheru surrounding that of Isis, is also found in Denderah’s so-called Chapel of Purification, the Per-Nu. And yet again, the same scene of Isis alone is found on another wall in a different room of the temple. As before, the enthroned Isis is seated over an isheru-shaped basin. The inscription reads, “Isis the Great . . . is seated/pacified in the isheru that is all around Her, Who crosses the lake within Her barque.” The inscriptions go on to describe Isis’ traveling on the isheru as a meeting with Her father Nun and tell us that He enfolds Her in His arms. Both Isis and Hathor are connected with the Inundation and the Primordial Waters. The Waters are offered by the king to Hathor since She regulates the ideal Inundation, while Isis, Who brings the Inundation, is embraced by Her father Who is said to be the primordial Watery Abyss Himself.
The Goddesses’ ritual travel by boat upon the isheru is known to Egyptologists as a navigation. (At Denderah, there were 9 navigations, by the way: one for each place the Goddess stopped on Her way back from Nubia.)
We might remember that Isis, too, has a rather famous navigation: the Navigium Isidis (the “ship of Isis” or “sailing of Isis”). I’m still trying to confirm the Egyptian word that was used for the “navigation” in the Hathor-Isis festival. There is an Egyptian word, khenet, which is related to other words having to do with boats, sailors, and navigation—as well as a festival of Osiris that featured a procession of boats—but I’m not sure whether the same word was used for the navigation of Isis and Hathor on the isheru.
Nevertheless, it is clear that at Denderah one of the things the Return of the Goddess was about was the return of the waters of the Inundation that would bring food and prosperity to Egypt. In addition, the rising river made the Nile more navigable for a wider variety of boats and ships. Just before the flood was the time of the river’s lowest, most-difficult-to-travel water levels. The Navigium Isidis (Gk: Ta Ploiaphesia; the Launching [of the Ship of Isis]), while not concerned with the water level or Inundation of the Nile, was concerned with the navigability of the Mediterranean Sea that would mark the start of the shipping season in spring.
Then Festival Ensues
We now come to the final element in the Wandering Goddess myth: Her joyful return and the Festival of Drunkenness. We have already seen evidence of such festivals for Mut, Tefnut, Bastet, Nehemant, and of course, Hathor. And I’m sure that, at Denderah, with the closeness of the Goddesses, Isis devotees would have participated with Hathor devotees during the festivals held there. There certainly were joyous festivals for Isis—She is, after all, called “the Festive Goddess.” Often, these were related to the conception and birth of Horus and the birthdays of Isis and Her siblings during the epagomenal days. What’s more, She is known as a joyful Goddess; temple inscriptions call Her the Queen of Joy, Lady of Rejoicing, and Lady of Jubilation. Deities and human beings rejoice when They/they see Her. Isis is called She Whose Heart is Open and Her joy is likened to the beauty of the full moon.
Still, we don’t have solid evidence of a full-fledged Festival of Drunkenness for Isis.
And yet.
There are these two little bits of graffiti from Her temple at Philae. They’re in bad shape. They’re from a late period. But one mentions a day of singing and drunkenness, the other notes a dedication to Hathor, a “house of greeting,” and “the place of drunkenness of the people.”
In fact, all of this makes sense. Philae was home to a temple of Hathor—just as Denderah included a temple of Isis. Philae was also Tefnut’s first stop on Her way back from Nubia.
It was at Philae that She changed from burning lioness to peaceful Goddess. So it may well be that—in that fluid way of Egyptian Goddesses and Their festivals—Isis-Hathor-Tefnut may have been celebrated with a Festival of Drunkenness at Philae, too. Since there is no temple calendar carved on the walls at Philae, we can’t be sure, but perhaps we will learn more from other discoveries as time goes on.
So, there you have it. It may have been that Our Lady Isis participated in both of the great mythic themes of ancient Egypt: the Isis & Osiris story as well as the myths of the Wandering/Distant/Returning Goddess.
Isis as a Wandering Goddess
Part 2
Last time, we wondered whether Our Lady Isis might be one of the Wandering/Distant/Returning Goddesses of ancient Egypt. And while we don’t have myths of an angry Isian departure or a festival of drunkenness for Her, I still think there are enough traces left to connect Isis to this important Egyptian mythic theme.
Let’s start at Philae, the location of Isis’ great Upper Egyptian temple, located near Egypt’s border with ancient Nubia. As you might recall, Philae was Tefnut’s first stop upon that Goddess’ return to Egypt following Her angry flight to Nubia. An inscription on Isis’ temple there says that when Tefnut arrived, there was a great flame around Her, but then She went up into the sky 10,000 cubits and immediately became peaceful.
Egyptologist Joachim Quack suggests an astronomical solution to the burning lioness’ aerial ascent: the heliacal rising of the star Sirius, which twinkles red close to the horizon, but as it rises higher takes on a calmer, blue-white color, and which—thousands of years ago—heralded the beginning of the vital Egyptian Inundation. The temple at Philae, in ancient Egypt’s far south, would have been one of the first places observers could have witnessed the heliacal return of the star.
The star’s behavior, apparently leaving the sky for a period of about 70 days each year while it is in a too-close conjunction with the greater light of the sun, works well with the myth. The Goddess disappears for a while, then returns to the rejoicing of the people, for as She returns, She brings with Her the floods that ensure the fertility of the land. What’s more, some of these festivals for the Returning Goddess seem to have taken place around the summer solstice. Depending on when in time and where on earth you were or are, the summer solstice could coincide roughly with the rise of Sirius.
So…here in Isis’ temple on the border of Nubia, we have Isis’ own grandmother Tefnut, identified with the star Sirius, which is itself personified as the Goddess Sopdet, a Goddess Who has been identified with Isis since at least the time of the Pyramid Texts. If we appreciate the Sirius solution as a possible origin for the myth of the Wandering Goddess, it’s a pretty easy, pretty clean Distant/Returning Isis connection.
Of course, if you’ve looked into Egyptian myth, you know that most of it doesn’t come in clear, narrative form. The only reason we have a narrative-ish version of the Isis and Osiris story is that the Greek priest Plutarch wrote it down like that.
As a source for the story of Tefnut as the Returning Goddess, we have the Demotic and Greek versions I mentioned last time, but mostly what we have are bits and pieces from temple walls, monuments, funerary texts, and texts like the Delta and Tebtunis mythological manuals. And while the overarching theme is the same—Goddess goes, bad; Goddess returns, good—the details are different enough that no one has tried to put together any such thing as a definitive version of the myth.
So, to track down our Wandering Isis, I’ll try to pull together some of the pieces of Her story that seem to relate to the main features of the myth/s as we know them.
The Angry Goddess
One of the first things you may have noticed is that our Distant Goddesses all have a lioness form. Most people are familiar with the lioness forms of Sakhmet-Hathor and Tefnut, but the other Distant Goddesses are lionesses, too. As the pride’s main hunters, lionesses are decidedly fierce. Even lions back off in the face of an angry lioness; you’ve seen the videos.
And yes, even glittery Sopdet has a lioness form. If you’ve been following along with this blog, you already know that Isis Herself can appear as a lioness and is frequently identified with Sakhmet or Bastet, just to name two of our most prominent Feline Goddesses. Isis’ Philae temple entrance is guarded by two lion statues and She is often shown seated upon a lion-throne.
Horit (read about Her here and here) is lioness connected, too. Like Isis, She is repeatedly identified with some of our fierce feline Goddesses. One of Her children is killed by a lioness. The lioness is hunted down by Nephthys and Thoth and flayed. The remains of the child are wrapped in the lioness’ skin and the child is reborn.
Another part to Horit’s myth makes Her a duplicate of Isis. One of the children She bears to Osiris is Horus of Medenu. When Osiris is killed by Seth, Horit hides Her Horus in the marshes, raising Him to be an avenger of His father Osiris—just as Isis did with Her Horus, Harsiese “Horus, son of Isis.”
Further, Horit is imprisoned in Sebennytos where She is connected with Tefnut, Sakhmet, Bastet, and Hathor. Sebennytos also had a temple of the lioness Meyht and Her consort-hunter Onuris. Just a few miles from Sebennytos is the location of the Lower Egyptian temple of Isis known (later) as Isiopolis with its focus on the resurrection of Osiris. So right here, in this part of the Egyptian Delta, we find temples and myths that incorporate both the Returning Goddess and Isis-Osiris themes. What’s more, we have a duplicate Isis—Horit—Who forms a kind of bridge between these two important motifs.
Another characteristic of our Distant Goddesses is that They are angry when They leave. In some cases, we know why; in others, we don’t. And while many people think of Isis as an exclusively kind and motherly Deity, She can also show an angry-burning-lioness side and be kick-yer-ass insistent from time to time.
Warning: discussion of rape in myth upcoming
You may recall that in several fragments of the myth, the reason Tefnut leaves in anger is that She has been raped by Her son Geb. Isis, too, suffers rape by Her son Horus. A stele from the Middle Kingdom refers to Horus violating Isis while He “inclined His heart toward Her”(!?!). From the Harris Magical Papyrus, we have this heart-rending account of Isis’ reaction:
Isis is weary on the water; Isis lifts Herself on the water; Her tears fall into the water. See, Horus violates his mother Isis and Her tears fall into the water.
Harris Magical Papyrus, VIII, 9-10
In Koptos, where Min has the epithet Bull of His Mother and is the consort of Isis, the God eventually came to be assimilated with Horus—again sexually pairing Isis and Horus. So much so, that They formed the very unusual cross-sex combination form of Isis-Horus. In a papyrus from the Ramesseum collection, another falcon God, Hemen, a form of Horus, has sex with Isis and impregnates Nephthys with a daughter, and we again have reason to think this was not consensual. Of course the Goddess is angry.
Even in Plutarch’s rendition of the story of Isis and Osiris, Isis displays anger. As Isis is bringing Osiris’ body back to Egypt from Byblos by ship, the wind makes for rough sailing, so Isis dried up the river with an angry look. When She stopped to mourn Osiris, a prince of Byblos who had accompanied Her, became unwisely curious and observed Her in Her grief. She turned a terrible gaze upon him and he died instantly.
In Demotic (late Egyptian), we find a term hyt, that would be pronounced something like khyt, which could mean anything from divine inspiration and ecstasy to doom, fury, or curse. Interestingly, it was usually “cast” on or against someone or something—just as heka, magic, was (and is) cast. A graffito from Isis’ temple at Philae says that “the hyt of Isis is upon any man who will read these writings.” The person had written their name on the temple and was calling down the hyt of Isis on anyone who might remove the writing. A graffito at Aswan makes this clearer:
The hyt of Isis the Great, Chief of the Multitude/Army is upon every man on earth who will read these writings. Do not let [him] attack [the writings], to not let him disparage the writings. Every man on earth who will find these writings and erase or disparage the writings, Isis the Great, Chief of the Multitude/Army will decrease his lifetime because of it, while every man who will give praise and respond regarding them, [he will be praised(?)] before Isis the Great, the Great Goddess.”
Graffito Aswan 13, ll. 6-13; Appendix, no. 2, in Robert Ritner’s “An Eternal Curse upon the Reader of These Lines”
From Saqqara, a Demotic inscription forebodingly says that, “the hyt of Isis is upon you.” While Isis is not the only Deity having hyt (most did), we can at least see the fearsome power of Isis’ fury or curse. From the later Greek Magical Papyri, we still find a fierce Isis Who is called upon in an erotic spell of compulsion:
For Isis raised up a loud cry, and the world was thrown into confusion. She tosses and turns on her holy bed and its bonds and those of the daimon world are smashed to pieces because of the enmity and impiety of her, [name of the woman who does not desire the spell caster] whom [name of her mother] bore.
PGM XXXVI, 134-160
We’ve not come to the end of our exploration of Isis as a Wandering-Distant-Returning Goddess…but this post is long enough for now. So we’ll take it up again next time to see what else there might be to be seen.
For now, we know that Isis has a fierce lioness form, that She has reason to be angry in a manner similar to at least some of our Wandering Goddesses, and that, in Lower Egypt—around Her temple at Isiopolis—this myth was not only particularly important, prevalent, and widespread, but most of the Goddesses participated in some version of the myth in one way or another.
Is Isis a Wandering Goddess?
This summer, we’ll be celebrating a festival for the Wandering Goddesses, Hathor and Sakhmet. The myth of the Wandering Goddess is one of the most important myths of ancient Egypt. Almost every locality had their own version of the story and their own Wandering Goddess. So, I’m going to repost my Wandering Goddess series—while I work on new posts and attend a Board meeting today. I hope you find it interesting.
Part 1
If your first reaction is, “Well, heck yeah; She wandered all over looking for the bits of Osiris,” you would not be wrong. But I’m thinking of a different wandering Goddess motif—and not one that is usually associated with Isis.
This mythic theme is also known as the tale of the Distant Goddess, the Wrathful Goddess, or the Returning Goddess. Most people are familiar with it from the Egyptian text known as the Book of the Heavenly Cow.
In that story, humanity has rebelled against Re and He sends Hathor—Who becomes the much-more-violent Sakhmet—to punish them. She enjoys Her work so well that Re is afraid She might wipe out all of humanity. To quell Her berserker rage, beer is colored red. Lioness Sakhmet laps it up like blood, becomes drunk…and is thus “pacified.” Egyptian festivals celebrated Her peaceful return to Her father Re with all-around drunkenness—and not a few hookups on one hand and mystical communions with the Goddess on the other.
But there are many other Goddesses Who share this mythic motif. While the details—to the extent that we have them—are different in the different tales, let’s take a brief look at Who-all-else may have been involved.
In the second most well known of these tales, it is Tefnut Who is our Wandering Goddess. We have a Demotic (late Egyptian) version of the tale and a Greek folktale-ish one. Both are spotty as the papyri are quite damaged and neither has been translated into English, so I’m working from paraphrases.
As our story begins, Tefnut—one of the Fiery Feline Goddesses of the Eye—is angry. She is the Eye of Re, Who, in this version, is Her father. We don’t know why She is angry, but She leaves, heading south, possibly to Nubia or to some other place That Is Not Here.
Without His powerful daughter, Re is vulnerable, so He sends Shu, Tefnut’s husband and brother, and Thoth, Who is particularly clever at pacifying angry Goddesses, to fetch Her back. Eventually, They track Her down. It takes some doing, but with entertaining stories, promises of offerings and festivals, jars of beer, and the wensheb, the symbol of ordered time (and general ma’et-ness), the Fiery Goddess is persuaded to return to Egypt and Her father.
The first place She stops on Her way back into Egypt is the southern Egyptian temple of Isis at Philae. There, She is purified and transforms from Her Burning Lioness form into a lovely woman. On the nearby island of Biggeh, where a tomb of Osiris and an Isis-Osiris temple were located, we find also a temple to Tefnut-Hathor, our angry/joyful Goddess. Perhaps this temple was Her starting point as She traveled from southern Egypt to northern, stopping at temples and towns along the way.
At each stop, a joyous welcome-home-and-restoration-of-order festival of music, dancing, drinking, and feasting ensues. (I am reminded that in cultures throughout the world—often—festivals of license are required in order to usher in a renewed period of order.)
Warning: references to rape in myth upcoming.
Another of Tefnut’s Wandering Goddess myths is darker. We have bits of it from papyri found in the Faiyum and the Delta and on a naos from the 30th dynasty. From these sources, we learn that Geb has raped His mother Tefnut and taken the kingship from His father Shu, recently deceased, though we’re not sure how Shu died. Another version of the myth says Geb “hurt His father Shu as He copulated with His mother Tefnut.” In the next sentence, Tefnut leaves—surely blazing with anger, though what we have says nothing of Her state of mind. During Her absence, the text says, “the lance was placed in His [Geb’s] thigh,” in punishment. Another version has Geb taking up the royal Uraeus of Shu and placing it on His own head, but it burns Him ferociously with a wound that won’t heal. (And we recall that the royal Uraeus is yet another form of the fiery Eye Goddess.)
There are many confusing details in these myths that I won’t go into here. But I do want to again call out the reason why the outraged Goddess leaves, going as far away as She can: She has been raped by Her son.
In a different post, we looked at another raped-Goddess myth, the story of Horit. We don’t hear of Horit leaving for somewhere That Is Not Here. While being identified with Tefnut, She is instead imprisoned—in Sebennytos, the Lower Egyptian capital of the nome where Isis’ temple complex at Isiopolis was located. Eventually, She is freed. So, the Return of the Goddess, in this case, is a return from imprisonment…with the same joyous welcome from the people.
From Upper Egypt, there is the story of Mehyt and Onuris. Onuris, the desert hunter, is the consort of the Lioness Goddess Mehyt. His name means something like “Bringer of the Distant One” and Her name means something like “the Full One.” It may relate to Her identification as the Udjat Eye of Horus, that is the full Eye or the full moon. Mehyt, like all Eye Goddesses, is a protective Goddess, and protects both Osiris and Re. She is also a Fierce Goddess wielding arrows or hoards of demons as needed. As Onuris is involved in a hunt for the Eye of Horus, His heart is said to ache for the Sacred Eye, which certainly seems to make The Eye less of a thing to be procured and more of…well…a Goddess to be desired. Mehyt and Onuris were also honored in Lower Egypt; there was a temple to Them at Sebennytos.
There were many local versions of the Distant Goddess theme. Frequently, the raging Goddess goes by one name and the pacified one by another—like Sakhmet/Hathor in the Heavenly Cow. At Hermopolis, the fiery Goddess is Ai or Tai, while the peaceful one is Nehemant. Demotic inscriptions from Herakleopolis, where these Goddesses were also honored, show evidence of a festival of drunkenness for Her, as it seems there may have been for all our Returning Goddesses.
Inscriptions tell us that “when they are drunk, they will see . . . by means of the vessel” and that people make love before the Goddess and celebrate Her with feasts. From Tebtunis (in the Faiyum), Wenut (Who we met here) is the Raging Goddess and Nehemtua is the Returning One. Nehemant/Nehemtua (and other, similar renderings of Her name) is, predictably, identified with Tefnut, Horit, and Hathor.
Instead of Nubia, Nehemtua has fled to Naunet, the Great Goddess of the Hermopolitan Abyss, and settled Herself within Naunet. Here, we do know why She fled: because Set wants to possess Her, both sexually and as a symbol of His father Geb’s kingdom. So again, the Goddess is fleeing either post-rape or to prevent it. In this tale, it is Thoth and Nephthys Who go to bring the Goddess back.
Upon Her return, Nehemtua is said to have been “initiated” (bsi) to Shu (reinforcing Her connection to Tefnut) in the great (sacred) lake at Hermopolis. Frequently, water is required to cool down the fiery Goddess.
The Great Goddess Mut, Whose name means simply “mother,” is also associated with this theme. She is the Lady of the Isheru,* the crescent-shaped sacred lake in which the Raging Goddess is cooled and, no doubt, purified upon Her return. Part of Her ecstatic festival of return was called the Navigation of Mut and was enacted upon the cooling isheru. Some semi-recently come-to-light texts have made Mut’s festival of drunkenness rather famous. A very fragmentary text about these festivals refers to “the Distant One” and to pacification of the Goddess. We learn of singing, dancing, drinking, feasting, and “sexual bliss” in honor of Mut. Pharaoh Hatshepsut is recorded as having built a “portico of drunkenness” for Her.
Also of note is Mut’s ability to renew Herself; She is both mother and daughter. Her consort is Amun, Who is capable of self-renewal, too, for He bears the epithet Kamutef, Bull of His Mother. And yes, the bull part refers to sex. So we have Mut and Amun (and Re, as possessor of the Eye, is in there somewhere, too) as mother and daughter and son and father to each other. The God Min of Koptos is also called Kamutef—with Isis as His mother/sexual partner. With the Isis-Horus connection so strong, Min eventually takes on the name Horus as well.
And this is by no means the end of the Egyptian Goddesses associated with the myth of the Wandering Goddess, but it is enough to get a picture of its widespread nature. Egyptologists’ explanations for its origins include: the sun’s movement southward from summer to winter; the heliacal disappearance and return of the star Sirius to herald the Inundation; the waning and waxing of the moon during its cycle; the Inundation itself as its waters quench Egyptian fields and cool the red-hot Goddess; the hunter bringing back a tamed animal to his tribe; the maintenance of royal power; the return of ma’et after a period of disorder; and a young woman’s first menstrual period—wherein she leaves as an immature girl, but returns as a sexually mature being, a possibility I find intriguing. Oh, and let’s not forget (in some cases) rape as the reason for the Goddess’ departure and the “sorry, come back home, baby” nature of the persuasions—to put another human face on it. All of these make some sense and there doesn’t have to be just one answer.
As I said in the beginning, we don’t usually connect Isis with this myth. We have no stories left to us in which Isis rages off and has to be persuaded to return, from Nubia or anywhere else. We know of no festivals of drunkenness for Her. And yet, I feel almost certain that there used to be just such a tale. We’ll talk about that next time and I’ll lay out my case.
*As you might guess, Sakhmet and Bast, both feline Deities, were known to have isheru…but Wadjet had one, too. Usually, we think of Her in the form of the Uraeus Goddess, but She also had a lioness form—and is thus among our Fierce and Fiery Felines, too.
A Prayer to Isis in a Time of Deep Pain
“In the center is a Sanctuary and I am calling you to come inside,” the Beautiful One said in a voice soft as thought.
Outside, pale prophets spoke words of doom, contagious fear spreading from their cold lips.
“Pay it no heed,” says She. “In the Sanctuary, an Incandescent Fire resides. The helpless heart is strong.”
Her words penetrate so close to my shuttered heart that I am afraid to hope. And yet I do hope.
“Enter into Sanctuary, enter into Peace,” She says. “Pain and fear cannot exist within; they are Other. Come now, you are not abandoned.”
Fear begins to fall away into pools of light, white as lightning.
“Look,” says She, “I have woven for you a Chrysalis.”
“I know,” I say, “of Incandescent Fire, and Sanctuary is the entering within.”
The Beautiful One smiles, “Yes.”
Frankly, I do not know how we get through the Horrors with our sanity intact.
I do know that we cannot give up and we cannot give in. We must resist. And we must rest—within the wings of Our Lady Isis and in the presence of all our Divine Ones.
It is a time to take care of ourselves, both our individual selves and our community selves; to ignite and grow an inner reservoir of hope, and even joy. It is not frivolous to dance, to laugh with friends; it is soul-saving. It is powerful to make art. It is powerful to make magic. It is powerful to be in Nature, breathing the breath of the earth and the skies and the waters. It is powerful to reach out to each other, to help and to hold.
To fuel such acts of power, we stay connected—not only with ourselves and our communities, but also with the Divine. We envelop ourselves in that chrysalis of incandescent fire that She has woven from Her own wing feathers for us. It is made of transformations and miracles and strength.
And yes, we must take action. Join groups. Give money if we can. Write letters and call. Nagging can be powerful, too.
As those of you who have been following along with this blog know, its purpose has never been political. And it is not my intention for it to veer off in that direction.
So next time, we’ll return to our regular topics. I am always searching for information about Our Lady that I want to share with you. As well as new ways that we can open ourselves fully to Her, so that She—and we—may discover, nurture, and empower our Isis Hearts within. These are ways we stay in connection with Her.
Her wings uphold us. Her wings enfold us. Now in this time of pain in the presence of evil, and forever.
What is Isis Like?
Not what does She like. But what is She like.
I admit, I don’t spend as much time in Her shrine as I would like. (My guilty conscience says, “as I should.”) Yet, since Her shrine and my office are in the same room, She is always there with me, even if I’m not in active communion.
And I will further admit that, even when I am in active communion, I am often seeking inspiration from Her about how to better communicate Her love, power, wisdom, and magic to others who seek Her.
But it’s important for me—as I suggest it may be for you—to just to be with Her, to feel Her presence, to sense Her Being, to drink Her sunlight, to taste Her magic. With no other agenda.
So, I’d like to share a little of what She’s like for me in such times, and invite you to share what She’s like for you, if you wish.
Something I’ve found very interesting over the years is that the experiences people have with Her are so harmonious. Certainly many discover Her as a loving Divine Mother. It’s a form many Goddesses take for us human beings. But I was really struck, one time in particular, when someone I was talking with described Her as “noble,” a word that I have often used to describe Her to myself. Though we are all so very different people, harmonies like that let me know that, yes indeed, we are all touching the same Goddess. We are all feeling Isis. We are all intuiting beneath Her wings.
So what is She like?
As She arrives, Isis is like the rumble of thunder just after the lightning flash. I feel Her move in the sky above me, in the earth beneath me. I feel Her thunder deep in my belly, in my womb.
Isis is like the face I can’t quite see beneath an obscuring veil. For a moment—a bright moment—She shows Herself to me. And for that instant, I think I know something about Her. And then Her veil is drawn back into place, endarkening Her aspect once more. O, I love that about Her. She makes me want Her.
Sometimes, Isis is like the earth after rain, when the sun comes out suddenly and mist wisps through the grasses in the unexpected heat. Then Isis is like the late-summer sun warming the heart in my naked body. She claims Her Iset Ib, Her Isis-Heart, that is within me.
Isis is like the tears shed for me, shed for the Lost One, shed for all of us. I place myself in Her hands when I am in sorrow and She hears me.
O yes, Isis is noble, Her head uplifted. In turn, She uplifts my face in Her hands that I may look into the profound depths of Her eyes. I see there unending strength and wisdom and love and magic. She makes me aspire to all those things, though I know I am ever-so human.
Isis is sun-golden. Isis is underworld-black. Isis is star-white. Isis is serpent-green. Isis is lapis lazuli-blue. Isis is blood-red.
Isis is like the Mystery that can never be fully described. Her great wings encircle, enfold, illuminate. Each feather is a teaching. Each feather is a world. I feel Her wings brush me softly and I swoon. Her Mystery upholds me, shows me, seduces me.
Isis is the most ancient, ancient. Unknown and untouched are Her depths. She calls me. She captures me. She floods me. She fills me.
And sometimes, just sometimes, that is what Isis is like for me. What is She like for you?
Isis & the Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Did you know that the famous tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is an Isis story?
Yep. And She is in Her guise as Great Magician—and a teacher of magicians.
The version you may be familiar with is Disney’s retelling of the tale with Mickey as the apprentice from the animated movie Fantasia. Before that, it was popularized by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in a 14-stanza poem called Der Zauberlehrling.
But that’s not where it originates. The oldest-known version of this tale is from a 2nd-century CE book by Lucian of Samosatos, a Hellenized Syrian known for his satires, rhetoric, pamphlets—and his snarky style. His snark is on full display in his book of dialogs called Philopseudes, or “Lover of Lies,” in which we find the tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
The book begins with the character Tychiades asking why people are so fond of “lies.” (Tychiades means “son of Tyche;” Tyche is the Goddess of Fate and Fortune and She was assimilated with Isis in this time period; there is even an Isityche.) The lies to which he refers are the “superstitious” remedies people are suggesting for a mutual friend, Eukrates, who has fallen ill. This situation serves as a framing story for ten tales of magic and the miraculous that the gathered friends, many philosophers, tell in order to convince Tychiades that the supernatural is not a lie.
Lucian seems to have favored the tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice as he gave it the most space of any of the included ten tales, and he placed it last to serve as the climax of the entire book. This story Tychiades hears from Eukrates himself.
Eukrates explains that the events he is about to relate are his very own experiences and that when Tychiades hears him out, he will be persuaded of the truth of the tale.
Eukrates story takes place in Egypt, as many ancient tales of magic did. As a young man, Eukrates has been sent on the Grand Tour throughout the Mediterranean world by his father to further his education. He is traveling up the Nile on his way to Koptos, and from there he intends to travel to the Colossoi of Memnon. Ahh, but he never makes it there.
For during his Nile travels, he meets a learned Egyptian scribe. I’ll quote the book now, because this is the part where we find Isis.
“We happened to be accompanied on the voyage up the Nile by a man of Memphis, one of the sacred scribes. His wisdom was marvelous and he had had the full Egyptian training. It was said that he had lived underground for twenty-three years in crypts while being trained in magic by Isis.”
“You’re speaking of Pankrates,” said Arignotus, “He was my teacher: a holy man, always shaven, thoughtful, speaking his Greek with a heavy accent, long and thin, snub-nosed, with protruding lips and rather skinny legs.”
“Yes, that’s Pankrates!” he said. “At first I didn’t know who he was, but when I saw him performing all sorts of miracles every time we put to, most notably riding on crocodiles and swimming with the animals, whilst they fawned upon him and wagged their tails, I realized that he was a holy man, and by being nice to him I became a friend and comrade by gradual and imperceptible stages. As a result, he shared all his secrets with me. Eventually he persuaded me to leave all my servants behind in Memphis, and to accompany him, the two of us on our own. For, he explained, we would not want for attendants. This is how we lived thenceforth.”
And so we learn that the great holy man, Pankrates, was a fully trained Egyptian scribe magician—and trained by our Lady of Magic Herself. Thus, he is capable of all the classic Egyptian magician feats, from riding crocodiles to taming wild beasts. He could probably understand the language of animals, too.
As it turned out, it was quite true that Pankrates and Eukrates did not need any servants. For anytime a task needed doing, Pankrates would take a broom or pestle, bring it to life, and it would do the task perfectly. Interestingly, Eukrates notes that the transformed broom “would look human to everyone else;” something Disney left out because living brooms were way more fun to animate, no doubt.
Of course, the power to create magical servants (ushabtis?) was the power Eukrates most craved and it was the one thing Pankrates withheld. But one night, Eukrates eavesdropped on his master and overheard the first part of the incantation—the part that could turn a broom into a person. But he never learned the second part: how to turn the servant back into a broom.
You know the rest of the story. Water, water, everywhere.
In the end, the holy man returns, restores order, then promptly disappears—giving the hapless Eukrates no further information or instruction.
At the conclusion of his tale, one of Eukrates’ friends asks whether he can still conjure magical servants. Oh yes, indeed, Eukrates answers. But he still doesn’t have the off-button and so he’d wreck his home if he actually did the magic.
In an article I’m reading about this, the author compares the story of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice with a number of other magical tales. Some are Greek, some Egyptian. All share an Egyptian setting, an ambitious young man, a search for magical knowledge, a venerable magician-priest, and often a magical book. You can read about just such an Egyptian tale here and here.
The point he makes is that the Sorcerer’s Apprentice isn’t an outlier tale as some scholars of Lucian have long suggested. Instead, it fits well within a genre of Egyptian-magic-focused tales that were very popular at the time. This is also the time period during which the worship of Isis had spread widely throughout the Mediterranean world.
For me, the enduring popularity of this tale is just another example of the extremely significant influence ancient Egypt—and our Lady Isis (for Who else could be the Great Teacher of Magicians?)—had upon their neighbors.
Being a Servant of Isis—Outward Signs & Inner Experience
Many of you who read this blog may have a special relationship with Isis; you may be Her priestess or priest. And perhaps you, like me, have also been searching for a gender-neutral term for that special relationship. Some in our community have adopted “priestex” based on other contemporary gender-neutral endings.
I can offer you an option from ancient Egypt as well.
Now, ancient Egyptian was a highly gendered language: Goddess—Nudjeret; God—Nudjer. As in English, where we might add -ess to feminize a word, they added “t” to the end of the word to indicate the feminine. Most Goddess’ names, in Egyptian, end in “t.” (We usually add an “e” before the “t” to make it pronounceable as in Amun/Amunet.) The Egyptian titles that we translate as priest or priestess are hem (masc.) or hemet (fem.) Nudjer/Nudjeret. More literally, these are translated in English as “servant of the God/dess.” Since “servant” has no gender in English, servant of Isis is a perfectly good, gender-neutral term for this special relationship.
Whatever title we may prefer, the relationship itself comes with responsibilities. However, unless we are part of a formal organization that specifies what those responsibilities are, each of us will have to decide for ourselves exactly what serving Isis means to us. For me, there are five main keys, which I’ve written about on this blog—from worship and gaining knowledge about Her to ritual competency and spiritual growth.
When trying to sort out decisions like these, I often look to the past. Is there anything we can learn from the experiences of ancient servants of the Goddess? Of course, we have some information about what was required of them within the temples. But what was going on in their heads and hearts?
Unfortunately, we have little left that tells us what it meant to them inwardly and spiritually. No doubt, some servants were more devout than others. Nonetheless, there is every reason to think that indeed there were inner experiences. The Egyptian reputation for religious and philosophical knowledge was immense. It would only make sense that those who were sincerely following their path would have important personal, spiritual experiences—just as people have always done.
Though records of these inner experiences are few, we do have hints. For instance, from the the reign of Thutmose III we have an inscription that indicates that priestly initiations meant something spiritually as well as professionally. A new royal vizier, who was made Prophet of Ma’et*, says of his experience:
My abilities were not as they had been: my yesterday’s nature had altered itself, since I had come forth in the accouterments of a vizier, having been promoted to be Prophet of Ma’et.
This man felt truly changed by “coming forth” as a vizier and servant of Ma’et. We can assume that at least some of the servants of Isis had no less an experience than this man. Thoth also seemed to inspire warm feelings in His devotees—and as many of them were scribes, they had the ability to express it. They called Him the Lord of Friendliness and the God of Incomparable Goodness.
As late as the Greek Magical Papyri, this friendliness with Thoth remains. In PGM VIII, 1-63, Thoth is called Hermes, but we can known He is Thoth because the spell says that His images include an ibis and a baboon, that His name is great in Hermopolis (Khmunu; “City of the Eight”) and that even Isis, “the greatest of all the Gods,” calls on Him in every crisis. Part of the spell states, “For You are I, and I am You; Your name is mine, and mine is Yours. For I am Your image.” While the magic here is powerful, the sentiment is gentle and intimate.
In what is today known as the Archive of Hor, we have some records of intimate feelings for the Goddess. Hor was a priest of Isis and Thoth who came from the town of Sebennytos, the town that grew up around the Temple of Isis there, and which the Greeks called Isiopolis. He writes beautifully of Her, has prophetic dreams from Her, and calls Her by what I think is a pet name, “my Tana.” You can read his story here.
Yet the closest thing we have to a personal account of spiritual experiences related to Isis is in a novel by a North African named Apuleius. They are in his book, The Golden Ass, and he writes about his initiation into the Mysteries of Isis.
It dates to the late second century CE, when Isis’ popularity was most widespread. Because it is novelized, it gives us a glimpse of the protagonist Lucius’ interior state. And while Lucius is an initiate of Isis and not a priest, one could make an argument that he would probably qualify as what we would call a priest of Isis today. He is an initiate, he remains involved with the religion—serving in its special ranks or grades—and he outwardly marks himself as an Isiac by shaving his head.
In the novel, Lucius has had a spiritual crisis. After being magically turned into an ass, he has gone through trials and tribulations and finally throws himself upon the mercy of the Moon Goddess. She reveals Herself as Isis. She says that though She is called by many names, Her true name is Queen Isis.
She tells Lucius not to fear:
But above all things beware thou doubt not nor fear of any of those things as hard or difficult to be brought to pass…
…and know this of certainty, that the residue of thy life until the hour of death shall be bound and subject to Me; and think it not an injury to be always serviceable towards Me whilst thou shalt live, since as by My means and benefit thou shalt return again to be a man. Thou shalt live blessed in this world, thou shalt live glorious by My guide and protection, and when after thy allotted space of life thou decendest to the Underworld, there thou shalt see Me in the subterranean firmament shining (as thou seest Me now) in the darkness of Acheron, and reigning in the deep profundity of Styx and thou shalt worship Me as one that hath been favorable to thee. And if I perceive that thou art obedient to My commandment and hold to my religion, meriting by thy constant chastity My divine grace, know that I alone may prolong thy days above the time that the Fates have appointed and ordained.”
As an initiate of Isis, Lucius’ life is to change. He is to be Hers forever; and in return, She will not only save him from his present difficulty, but prolong his lifespan.
The priest who is overseeing his initiation tells Lucius that to take Isis’ holy orders was like a “voluntary death and slow recovery.” Yet, even if someone were on the edge of death, and had but the strength to receive Her Mysteries, that person could be made new-born and healthy once more. He advises Lucius to “accept of your own free will the yoke of service.”
The mental and emotional state of Lucius after his initiation is one of pure love and wonder. He is passionately in love with the Goddess—and he remains so throughout all the days of his life.
I’ve had an experience like that. And I have always remembered it. It is one of the many experiences with Her that has made me passionate in my love of Her and dedication to Her.
Have you had such an experience?
* I’m only looking at a translation here and don’t have the Egyptian. When Egyptologists translate “prophet,” they usually mean a high priest, thus this title may have been Hem Ma’et Tepi or chief servant of Ma’et.
Isis & My ‘Epagomenal’ Days
This year, the holidays have not touched me.
Not Thanksgiving. Not Yule. Not any of the beautiful winter holidays of Light. I am just not feeling festive. I am too deeply concerned about my own country and much of the world. I am too deeply concerned about my community and many of the individual friends and loved ones who are a part of it.
Yet today, out of nowhere—while on a simple errand—I finally felt something. I felt the epagomenal days. I sensed myself existing in a time-out-of-time, in a strange unreality. Sound seemed dampened as a soft quietness fell over everything.
And I realized that my own feeling of unfestive unease may mirror the feelings that many ancient Egyptians would have had during their own epagomenal days.
For them, the epagomenal days were the five days before the summer rising of the Star of Isis, Sopdet (Sothis in Greek, Sirius in Latin). With the rising of Her Star, the New Year began.
(The Egyptian year had 360 days, but the solar year has 365.25. So the Egyptians made up the difference by adding five epagomenal—intercalary or “inserted into the calendar”—days at the end of the year.)
These days were also considered the birthdays of Osiris, Haroeris (Horus the Elder), Set, Isis, and Nephthys. So, you would think these would have been positive days for the Egyptians. But without the protection of the confines of the calendar, the Egyptian epagomenal days were thought to be a quite dangerous time. People wore special amulets and priests might perform the ritual of Sehotep Sakhmet, or “Pacifying/Satisfying Sakhmet,” because the demonic, disease-bringing hoards of the fierce Goddess were particularly rampant at the end of the year. (See more about epagomenal amulets here.)
Our December is most definitely not the time of the ancient Egyptian end-of-the-year epagomenal days. However, from winter solstice to the New Year is the time I consider to be my epagomenal days, for they are the end-of-year days in our modern calendar. And they, too, are the lead-in to a little miracle that involves the Star of Isis. More on that below.
So let’s talk a bit about the epagomenal days, including some ways to celebrate our own end of the year with Isis.
Epagomenal days as birthdays of the Deities
As early as the Middle Kingdom (2050-1650 BCE), these five extra days were associated with the Divine birthdays. Birthday festivals for each of these Deities were duly celebrated during each epagomenal day. The time between the winter solstice and our New Year is longer than the Egyptian period, but if you’d like to celebrate the birthdays of the Deities, one every other day rather than one per day would work out fairly well.
On the other hand, if you wish to be more Isis-centric in your worship, you could consider the entire period as holy days of the Goddess as the miracle of Her star approaches.
We can look to some ancient calendrical inscriptions for the day of Isis’ birthday to give us clues about options for honoring Her at this time. In a papyrus known as Leyden I, She is called “The Great One, Daughter of Nuet.” She is said to be “in Khemmis,” that is, in a particular city in the delta, and She is invoked particularly for protection.
In another papyrus, Leyden II, the fourth day is said to be named “the Pure One Who is in His Field.” The masculine pronoun would seem to exclude Isis. It could allude to Osiris—or it could be a scribal error. If it should have been the Pure One Who is in Her Field, it would make a good deal of sense in connection with Isis since She was closely associated with the pure new plants that would soon be coming forth from the Egyptian fields in the New Year.
In 1943, a papyrus was purchased by the Cairo museum from an antiquities dealer. It turned out to be three ‘books’ about the Egyptian calendar. Two were extremely damaged and hard to read. The third has become known as the Cairo Calendar and includes information on which days of the year were considered auspicious and which were not. Of course, it includes the epagomenal days. In it, the fourth epagomenal day, Isis’ birthday, is said to be named “He Who Makes Terror.” It includes a formula to be recited on that day:
“O, this Isis, Daughter of Nuet, the Eldest, Mistress of Magic, Provider of the Book, Mistress Who Appeases the Two Lords, Her Face is Glorious. I am the brother and the sister. The name of this day is He Who Makes Terror.”
Another calendar notes that the fourth day is called, “the Child Who is in His Nest; the Birth of Isis.” And you’ll remember from several weeks ago that at Denderah, the child in His nest is Re, Whose rising, after the rising of Isis’ star, marks the first day of the New Year. In fact, the Denderah temples include numerous references to Isis’ connection with the New Year and the important renewal it brings. There is some evidence that Isis’ temple at Philae may have been dedicated to Her on the 4th epagomenal day as a birthday present. We also have evidence of a lamp festival for Isis on Her birthday, which you can read about here.
Despite its preceding dangers, the ancient Egyptian New Year itself was a time of joy, rebirth, and renewal. Our own New Year can be the same for us. The ancient Egyptian themes are, after all, entirely in harmony with our modern New Year celebrations.
Like they did, we begin again.
We start over. We rededicate ourselves. We make resolutions to do things better. Purification is often associated with such reboots and so the epagomenal days would be a perfect time for purification prior to entering into the New Year. People participating in “Dry January” are undertaking a purification from alcohol. Lots of people start New Year’s diets then, too. We might also purify ourselves by bathing, fasting, purchasing new clothing, or purifying our sacred spaces by cleaning and straightening up our shrines—all the while invoking Isis to surround us with Her mighty wings, encircling us with Her protection.
Epagomenal days as the time of the Star of Isis
During our winter epagomenal days, we don’t witness the heliacal rising of the Star of Isis as the ancient Egyptians did. However, there is something very special that happens at this time of year for those of us in the northern hemisphere: Sirius reaches its zenith, its highest point in the night sky.
The beautiful, glittering star of Isis ascends high into the starry belly of Her mother Nuet at the stroke of midnight on January 1st—and She can be seen shimmering in that position for about the first week of January. And this year, there’s a bonus: we’ll also see Jupiter and Mars nearby and shining extra brilliantly as well.
So, just as the heliacal rising of Sirius heralded the ancient Egyptian New Year, the beautiful Star of Isis reaching its highest point in the sky can serve as a marker for our own modern New Year’s celebrations. You’ll find a small rite for celebrating here.
For me, here in Portland, it is likely that our cloudy skies will obscure the brilliance of the celestial show above, as they so often do. Nevertheless, I will be purifying myself, asking Isis for protection and growth, and using the small ritual at the link above to welcome in the renewal of the New Year.
Do you have anything special you’ll be doing?
Is Isis a Virgin Goddess?
It’s that time of year when we (once again) see all those articles comparing the Divine Mother Mary with the Divine Mother Isis, followed by either outrage or approbation, depending on who’s doing the writing.
Not long ago, in relation to this, a friend of this blog asked a very excellent question. It had to do with Isis’ status as a Virgin Goddess. Basically, is She or isn’t She? She is often compared with the famously Virgin Mary, and the images of the two Goddesses, nursing Their holy babes, are strikingly similar. And then there’s all of this.
Well, as is often the way with Goddesses, the answer is both no and yes.
We’re all pretty familiar with the sexual relations between Isis and Osiris. All the way back to the Pyramid Texts we hear about it, rather explicitly we might add. Pyramid Text 366 says, “Your [Osiris] sister Isis comes to You rejoicing for love of You. You have placed Her on your phallus and Your seed issues into Her…” Plutarch, in the version of the story he recorded, tells us that Isis and Osiris were so in love with each other that They even made love while still within the womb of Their Great Mother Nuet. And, of course, we have the sacred story of how Isis collected the pieces of the body of murdered-and-dismembered Osiris, all except the phallus. Crafting a replacement of gold, the flesh of the Gods, She was able to arouse Her Beloved sufficient for the conception of Horus. The mourning songs of Isis and Nephthys have Her longing for His love. The priestess, in the Goddessform of Isis, sings that “fire is in Me for love of Thee” and She calls Him Lord of Love and Lord of Passion. She pleads, “Lie Thou with Thy sister Isis, remove Thou the pain that is in Her body.” (For more on the Songs or Lamentations, go here.)
So, is that all there is to it? Isis is not a virgin?
Well, not quite. Because Isis is a Goddess.
Isis is the Goddess of 10,000 Names and 10,000 Forms. Among those forms are the sexual Lover of Osiris and the Mother of Horus. Also among Her many Names are syncretisms with famously virginal Goddesses such as Artemis, Hekate, and Athena, as well as heroines such as Io, a virgin priestess of Hera (a Goddess Who Herself renews Her virginity on the regular). Isis is identified with both Demeter the Mother and Persephone the Kore, the Young Girl, Who were sometimes seen as a single unit, Mother-Daughter, containing All in Themselves. Goddesses can be many things, all at once, without any contradiction—or perhaps with every contradiction, which is one of the ways of Goddesses.
No text shows us these Divine Feminine contradictions/not-contradictions as clearly as “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” a text found among the Nag Hammadi papyri. It is a long poem in the voice of a Feminine Divine Power that some scholars have linked to Isis; or at least they think that Her worship influenced the content of the text. Could be, but in my opinion, the Divine Speaker may be better understood as Sophia—with Whom Isis is also identified. The Coptic (late Egyptian) manuscript from which the text comes is dated to roughly 350 CE. Here’s a brief excerpt from this amazing work:
For I am the first and the last. I am the honored one and the scorned one. I am the whore and the holy one. I am the wife and the virgin. I am the mother and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband.
The Thunder, Perfect Mind
Clearly, Isis is syncretized with Virgin Goddesses throughout the Mediterranean world. And it is not at all unusual for such Goddesses to be both virginal and associated with fertility. What about Egyptian sources?
The ancient Egyptians were not quite so concerned with virgins—by which I mean, in this case, a young person who has not yet had sex—as were the Greeks and some other Mediterranean peoples. For instance, there was no requirement that young women or young men be sexually inexperienced when they married. Many young women probably were—particularly those who were married very young to older husbands. But prior to marriage, young people might engage relatively freely with each other. After marriage, sexual exclusivity was demanded—especially for women. The penalties for non-compliance could be very harsh—especially for women.
This is not to say that Egyptian virginity was not valued or even required under certain circumstances. The text that included the lamentation songs of Isis and Nephthys noted above specifies that the priestesses taking the roles of Isis and Nephthys be “pure of body and virgin” and also that they are to have their body hair removed, wigs on their heads, tambourines in their hands, and the names of Isis and Nephthys inscribed on their arms.
This text, one of very few we have, is from the Ptolemaic period, when Egypt had been influenced by Greek rule. I wonder whether virginity would have been considered necessary earlier. Perhaps the priestesses would have only had to abstain from sex for a period of time before their ritual service. We know that people serving in Egyptian temples had to abstain from sex for a time (at least a day, often a number of days) as part of their purification. But they weren’t virgins.
The God’s Wife of Amun, the highest of high priestesses, usually a female relation of the king, was virgin for life. Beginning in the 2nd Intermediate Period, the lifetime position of the God’s Wife gained a great deal of power, eventually becoming second only to the king. Interestingly, it was an “Isis”—Iset, the virgin daughter of Rameses VI—who began the tradition of the God’s Wife being celibate. Later, in the Roman period, some Roman priestesses of Isis maintained lifelong virginity. And we know that the Roman Isiacs might maintain a 10-day period of pre-ritual chastity known as the Castimonium Isidis or Chastity of Isis.
Isis Herself is called the Great Virgin in one of the inscriptions from the Isis Chapel in Seti I’s mortuary temple at Abydos. In Egyptian, this is Hunet Weret. Hunet is the word for girl or maiden, weret is the feminine form of great. Hunet is also the Egyptian name for the pupil of the eye and is connected to the Hermetic treatise known as the Kore Kosmou, the “Virgin of the World.” You can read about those maidenly connections here. (And read about the Kore Kosmou here, here, and here. )Just like Greek parthenos, hunet could mean a virgin, a girl, a maiden, or just youthful. (A young boy or youth is hunu.) And all Egyptian Goddesses are forever young.
Parthenogenesis was not unknown in Egypt, either. The First Creators in many Egyptian myths, such as the God Atum and the Goddess Neith, created everything from Themselves alone. Some Egyptian queens, such as Ahmose, Hatshepsut’s mother, were said to have given birth to pharaohs after sexual union with a God. Just like Mary and the Holy Spirit of the Christian God.
So, is Isis a Virgin Goddess? Yes. Does She have sex with Her Divine Husband? Yes. She is, as so many Goddesses are, Both And. She is a patroness of marital sexual desire and bliss and She is an ever-renewing, ever-youthful Virgin Goddess. In this holy season and every day, may She bless you with the gifts you most desire.
The Seshed Band of Isis
I have a new Isis accoutrement for you.
I love it when I find out new things—or new things about an old thing. This one is sort of an expansion on a previous thing.
Many of you may already be familiar with what are known as “black Isis bands,” which are needed in a number of rites in the Greco-Egyptian Magical Papyri (aka Papyri Graecae Magicae or PGM).
We can’t be sure, but I’ve theorized that these were made from the black cloth that had previously been used to clothe the sacred images of Isis, once the older robes had been replaced. Since the fabric was black, it would have been from Hellenized images of the Goddess. Egyptians did use cloth, both as offerings and to adorn their sacred images, but black cloth was not among the colors they generally favored.
What I’d like to share with you today is a different type of Isis band, an entirely Egyptian one. This band was given to Isis as an offering (see Offering to Isis, “Black Isis Bands”), and it was also worn by Her as part of one of Her various crowns. The information I’m working from is a dissertation by Barbara Ann Richter on The Theology of Hathor of Dendera. At Dendera, Isis is almost as prominent as Hathor. (And you’ll recall that Isis’ sanctuary at Philae also has a Temple of Hathor. Sisters!)
On the walls at Dendera, we see scenes with Isis wearing this particular crown, which consists of the Egyptian red and white Double Crown, one or two ostrich feathers, and the “seshed” band, which is wrapped around the base of the red crown—or sometimes around the headdress of Isis.
We even have a 3D image of what this crown with its seshed band may have been like. Near the sacred lake at the Dendera temple, archeologists found a cache of ritual items including a cult statue of Isis with the double crown and seshed band—except in this case, the seshed is around the Goddess’ wig rather than around the base of the crown. (Although, in this picture, it looks to me like there is something—possibly multiple serpents?—around the base of the crown.) There are also two holes in the white crown, which Richter suggests may have been meant to hold real (or separate) ostrich feathers.
The crowns and headdresses that the Egyptians represented the Deities wearing have specific meanings. The Double Crown represents rulership over the Two Lands, that is, Lower and Upper Egypt. The ostrich feather is the shut, the symbol of Ma’et—that which is Right, True, and Just. The seshed band is entwined by a uraeus serpent that is both protective and unifying, like the Double Crown.
In the Temple of Birth at Dendera (which I think is the Temple of the Birth of Isis), the king presents this crown to Isis and says, “Take for Yourself the seshed band. It has encircled Your forehead. The uraeus is united with Your head. The red crown and the white crown—they join together on Your forehead, the two feathers united beside them.” This crown emphasizes the unification of the land of Egypt as well as the powerful protection of the uraeus serpent. Since the crown is united with the Goddess, She embodies these qualities. And, of course, the Goddess bestows these same powers on the king in return, so we find the king wearing the seshed band at times, too.
The feathers “united beside them” allude to Isis’ description as “Lady of Ma’et, the uraeus on Her forehead, appearing with Ma’et every day.” In this inscription, however, the word translated as “uraeus” isn’t “uraeus.” It’s Mehenet, which is the feminine version of the protective serpent Mehen, meaning “the Coiled One.” Mehen protects the God Re by encircling Him as He travels through the underworld; He also protects Osiris. Since Isis is a Goddess, She is united with the feminine serpent Mehenet. As a fiery Uraeus Goddess Herself, Isis protects Re and She is also the foremost protectress of Her husband Osiris as well as Her son Horus (and thus, the king). Mehen and Mehenet are sometimes shown with Their tails in Their mouths, making Them the prototype of the ‘serpent biting its own tail’ and later known as the oroboros.
In some of the Coffin Texts spells, Mehen is closely connected to Re. Coffin Text 760 tells us that after Isis brings Mehen, the Coiled One, to Her son Horus, Horus becomes “the double of the Lord of All,” that is, the Sun God Re. The serpents Mehen and Mehenet are solar powers and Their coiling and encircling protects.
There was a tradition at Dendera that Dendera is the birthplace of Isis. An inscription in the sanctuary there says that Isis’ “mother bore Her on earth in Iatdi [that is, the Temple of the Birth of Isis at Dendera; also another name for Dendera as a whole] the day of the night of the infant in His nest.* She is the Unique Uraeus . . . Sothis in the Sky, [female] Ruler of the Stars, Who Decrees Words in the Circuit of the Sun Disk.” Since Isis is also Sopdet/Sothis/Sirius, the heliacal rising of the Goddess in Her star, just before sunrise, is Her “birth.” Her birth precedes the rebirth of the falcon Re—”the infant in His nest”—as He rises in the sun on the first day of the New Year.
The birth of Isis is also connected with the seshed band. We learn that the “Ritual of Presenting the Seshed Band” takes place on “the Day of the Night of the Child in His Nest.” These seshed bands, presented to Isis for a happy New Year, included inscriptions like “A beautiful year—a million and a hundred-thousand times” and “A happy year, year of joy, year of health, eternal year, infinite year.” In addition to offering the seshed band on Isis’ birthday, it was also given on the first day of the New Year.
The seshed band must have been—at least originally—a fabric band, for it was tied around the head and knotted with the two long ends of the band hanging down in back. The knot at the back was surely intended to be magical, emphasizing the ability of magical knots to secure and protect, while the band itself surrounds and protects like Mehenet.
The Pyramid Texts mention a powerful red headband with which the deceased identifies. Another Pyramid Text mentions a red and green headband that was woven from the Eye of Horus. While some Egyptologists connect these headbands with the seshed, I can’t be sure because I’m only looking at the English translation of the texts.
However, from Dendera, we do have an inscription that specifically describes a seshed band made of electrum. It is also possible that the fabric headbands had metal pieces, suitable for engraving with blessings, attached to them. It seems likely that the serpent that entwined the seshed would have been made of metal.
Egyptian Egyptologist Zeinab El-Kordy suggests that the word seshed is the active participle of shed, meaning “to draw or pull out” or “to cause to come.” She therefore connects it with drawing the Inundation out from its source and causing the flood to come. This could mean that the seshed band, especially when offered at the birth of Isis and the New Year, is a magical tool for helping to bring the much-desired Nile flood.
The seshed band protects and unifies. It is given as a talisman for New Year’s prosperity—which I think we can easily extend to good luck and blessings in general. And it is associated with rebirth and renewal. We also have scenes that connect it with birth as well as rebirth. They show the birthing mother, her midwives, and protective Birth Goddesses like Isis, Taweret, and Hathor, all wearing seshed bands.
Given this, I would suggest that if we are working with Isis in any of these areas—protection, unification, birth, rebirth, renewal, and even good fortune and good outcomes in general—we would be eligible to wear the seshed as part of our ritual gear. Although a custom-made uraeus serpent is probably out of reach for most of us, a fabric band in red (power and protection) or green (growth, change, benevolence) with a piece of inexpensive serpent jewelry attached to it, would be a perfectly serviceable seshed band for our work with Isis.
* Sources such as the Cairo Calendar connect the Night of the Child in His Nest with the 5th epagomenal day and the birth of Nephthys, while Isis’ birth is on the 4th epagomenal day. But at Dendera, Isis must have been considered to have been born on the 5th and last epagomenal day, rising as Sothis just before the sun. When the sun rises, the 5th epagomenal day officially ends and the new day and New Year begins. As is so often the case with Egypt, the myths and traditions could vary from place to place.
Offering to Isis Now Available for Pre-Order
Dear friends and fellow Isians,
I’m very—very!—excited to let you know that Offering to Isis, Knowing the Goddess through Her Sacred Symbols is available for pre-order from Azoth Press at the Miskatonic Books website right now. If you’d like to go directly there, here’s the link.
I know a lot of you are familiar with Isis Magic, but maybe you haven’t yet come across Offering to Isis. I may be a tad bit partial, but I really like this book a lot, too.
Offering to Isis is about how we can connect with, honor, and grow our relationship with Isis through the ancient and eternal practice of making offering. Offering is one of the most important ways we human beings have always communicated with our Deities. It was vitally important in ancient Egypt and it’s just as important for those of us interested in or devoted to Isis today.
If you’ve ever wondered exactly what sort of things to offer to Isis, Offering to Isis includes in-depth explanations of 72 sacred symbols associated with Isis—symbols that make ideal offerings to Her.
We’ll also talk about the how and why of Egyptian offering practices, including the important and genuinely ancient Egyptian technique of “Invocation Offering.” There’s information on exactly how the ka energy inherent in every offering is given to and received by Isis—and what to do with offerings once they’ve been received. You’ll also find a selection of offering rituals, from simple to complex, for a variety of purposes. Most rites are for solitary devotees, so I think you’ll find one that works just right for you.
If you’re curious and want to know exactly what’s in the book, you can download a PDF copy of the full Table of Contents by clicking on the caption under the “Contents” image.
The largest section of the book details the 72 sacred symbols of Isis. You’ll add to your knowledge of Isis and Her ancient worship by learning more about Her through Her important sacred symbols. You’ll see how each one is intimately connected with Her and how they may be used in offering rites for Her. Every entry also includes an Invocation Offering that you can use for your own offerings to Isis.
One of the things I especially like about this book is that you can just open it at random and you’ll likely find something you hadn’t known about Her, something that I hope will inspire you in your own devotions. For instance, how did the Knot of Isis come to be Her knot? What stones are associated with Her? What animals are connected with Her? Why are dreams especially important when it comes to Isis?
As it’s been a few years since this book was first published, the text has been thoroughly updated. All the hieroglyphs associated with the offerings have been re-illustrated and are much more accurate—and much more beautiful, if I may say so—in this new edition, too. There’s also a handy appendix in the back for quick reference in finding any offering you may need.
This new Azoth Press edition can be purchased only through the Miskatonic Books website. (If you go to Amazon, you will be ordering a 20-year-old paperback edition published by Llewellyn in 2005, which people are trying to sell at very inflated prices.) Oh yes, and if you’d like, you can take advantage of Miskatonic’s installment plan that lets you pay over several months so it doesn’t take a big bite out of your budget. Plus, the new hardback edition is priced A LOT lower than those overpriced, out-of-print first editions that I’ve seen out there.
When you go to the Miskatonic site, you’ll see two different Azoth Press Offering to Isis editions. For the high rollers, there will be 36 copies in a gorgeous leather-bound and numbered collector’s edition. For the rest of us, there will be 650 numbered, limited edition copies in a cloth-bound hardcover. Both editions are two-color throughout, and more than 400 pages.
Thank you so much for letting me tell you about this new edition. And would you please do me a favor and share this information with anyone who you think might be interested? And please feel free to ask me any questions about Offering to Isis that you’d like.
I’m looking forward to getting my own copy of this beautiful, new edition of Offering to Isis. And while you might think it’s strange, even though I wrote the book, I still use it for reference when I’m making offering to Isis. I hope this new edition will serve you well, too.
Under Her Wings,
Isidora
